Alfa Romeo Logo - A Serpent eating a man

[Iconoclast]

my dad is a classic car freak and owns an alfa romeo. over the christmas holidays i was again reminded of the weirdness of their logo - it depicts (besides a (temlar) cross) a serpent devouring a man, so i thought i'd post it here.



a quick google search yielded this

The logo is split in half and contains the emblems of Alfa's hometown Milan and the one of the great Milanese 'Visconti' family.

On the left is the red cross on a white background, which refers back to the days of the First Crusade, when many Milanese soldiers were amongst the Lombards who followed Giovanni of Rho to the Holy Land. The red cross was their symbol, whilst the white background symbolised the white shirts they were forced to wear under their armour to protect them from the fierce Palestinian sun.

On the right of the badge are the arms of the Visconti family, which later became recognised as those of the City of Milan.

There are several stories on were the serpent came from. Some says it represents the snakes that the Lombards used to wear round their necks in a little case as a lucky charm, - or the dragon which, at the start of the fifth century, plagued Milan and was finally killed by Uberto, Squire of Angera, and founder of the Visconti family, - or it could be the symbol of Ottone Visconti who fought a victorious duel with the Saracen leader, Voluce, during the First Crusade. The city of Milan, however, claims that the serpent has nothing to do with the Visconti family.

What's certain, though, is that the Visconti family emblazoned its red cross and serpent coat of arms over the great door of Castello Sforzesco in Milan - and this is where the Alfa Romeo association begins.

http://www.homdrum.net/alfa/alfahistory_logo.html

here is the visconti coat of arms (from wikipedia)

The House of Visconti was a noble family whose effectual founder, Oddone, wrested control of the city of Milan from the rival Della Torre family in 1277. The Visconti ruled Milan during the Middle Ages and the early renaissance, first as Lords of Milan, then, from 1395 as Dukes. The Visconti rule of Milan ended with the death of Filippo Maria Visconti in 1447. He was succeeded, after a short-lived republic, by his son-in-law Francesco I Sforza.

From Uberto, brother of Matteo I, came the lateral branch of dukes of Modrone; to this family belonged Luchino Visconti, one of the most prominent film directors of Italian neorealist cinema.

the whole imagery also reminds me of the numerous legends about dragons and dragonslaying - has the SOTT team ever written anything about this matter? i'd be interested to know more about this subject. (the town of my birth has a huge stone dragon as the town's landmark)

 

[Johnno]

I'm working on this, honestly I am....both as an ex Alfa owner and from some other symbols involving serpents and men/women.

Should have something up by Sunday morning.

 

[Johnno]

I had two Alfa a Alfasud and a 33. The above badges were constantly getting souveneired by I suspect kids for their collections. They were expensive to replace, the local Alfa dealer doing a roaring trade in Alfa Romeo badges.

The Serpent and the man is interesting to say the least.

Now the serpent could be eating the man or spitting him out depending on your perspective and your alignment. The serpent represents the "predators" mind (if you're into Castaneda) or "it" or the personality or the subjective conscious mind if your into Gurdjieff.

The little man or man is the real "I", the subconscious or objective conscience if you're into Gurdjieff. I'm not sure what Castenada calls this part of the split psyche. In any case, it appears the little guy is at odds with the slumbering monster that controls him.

As an aside I'd say STS would let the "it" become completely crystallized whereas STO would attempt to awaken the "little man" and crystallize that. Objective conscience is such a burden for those in the STS world.

The serpent/dragon/slithery thing and man symbol can be seen in symbolism in a variety of locations which I've included. These mostly were tied into Christian iconagraphy so they could get past the "censors" of the time. The various "vices" of apostles and Jesus himself can be seen as being "tramped down"and overcome.
Other serpent symbols even made it from Greek times such as Hermes Caduceus and the snaky tressed Gorgon that Perseus killed.

Some photos are mine, others are ones I've collected from the internet and a scan.

The knight at the entrance of Notre Dame in Paris. This can be found in Fulcanelli's "Mystery of the Cathedrals" I'd scan the old version of the statue but I can't find my copy of the book. The below is a photo I took whilst in Paris. The original dragon was bigger and more menacing, this was a "restoration" sculpture of the knight (made in the early 1900's?) which Fulcanelli spends a quite of bit of time on, bemoaning the loss of the original.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=340568804&size=o

The book Atalanta Fugiens by Micahel Maier, this is more hermetic/alchemic than Christian but the symbology is basically the same.

http://hdelboy.club.fr/embleme_50.jpg

This one is interesting it's David versus Goliath on the northern portal of Chartres cathedral, note that Goliaths armour appears "scaly".

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=348401658&size=o

Various Apostles at the Chartres Nothern Portal, John the Baptist is standing on a dragon. Fourth one along holding an Agnus Dei shield.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=348401659&size=o

Jesus on the Chartres Southern portal standing on a lion and a dragon(?).

http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?q1=FCSP324*;rgn1=chartres_fn;op2=not;q2=FCSP32402410*;rgn2=chartres_fn;op3=not;q3=FCSP32402420*;rgn3=chartres_fn;type=boolean;view=thumbnail;c=chartres

And in along a similar theme, a little man emerging from a stick, this was scanned from david Ovason's book The Zelator.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-open-mind/348409769/

And then there's my Avatar..... same theme; something feathered emerging from the scales. Found in the Auch Cathedral. Click the photo for an enlargement.

http://rubens.anu.edu.au/raid1/cdroms/webready/france/auch/cathedral/glass/P1010500.JPG

 

[Ryan]

The little man or man is the real "I", the subconscious or objective conscience if you're into Gurdjieff. I'm not sure what Castenada calls this part of the split psyche.

I finished reading "Tales of Power" over the Xmas break, and Castaneda spends most of the book describing Don Juan and Don Genaro's lessons about the "Tonal" (to-nahl), and the "Nagual" (na-wahl). I think these are Castaneda's versions of the "Personality" (Tonal) and "Essence" (Nagual). The Tonal is referred to as an "island" that needs to be cleaned or swept, and is the habitat of reason and logical mentality. The Nagual is considered to be "everything else" outside the island of the Tonal than is unknown and is capable of direct perception of the cosmos as it is, and also the performing of feats that seem like "sorcery" and "miracles" to the Tonal.

I wouldn't say the correlation is absolutely 1:1, but there is a majority "semantic overlap" between the two sets of concepts, OSIT. Well worth a read, and I think Laura is definitely on to something when she mentioned that Castaneda did a bit of "borrowing" from Gurdjieff.

 

[Ruth]

In the first picture (Alpha Romea logo), I originally thought that somebody had stuck a sword into the poor unfortunate snakes mouth. Kind of like 'slaying the dragon'.

But, the second picture (the Visconti coat of arms) definately looks like a man half way in either snake or a dragon's mouth. I'm not sure if he is emerging or being devoured. I'm wondering if there is any 'link' between the symbology of 'man' and 'sword'? Could they be used interchangeably? ie. Man can be used as a sword to kill a dragon.

 

[Johnno]

Is "Tales of Power" any good? I was trying to recall our conversation about which were the better of Castaneda's books. I picked up "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui way of knowledge." which I STILL can't get into....it may be a dud....it does have some gems in there. Too much mescal, oxalis and various other halucigenics , like a "saintly" Hunter S Thompson deal IMHO. There again I found Beelzebub's Tales throwing me into "mind swarm' until I started reading it properly.

Anyway in realization of my shortcomings of things Castaneda, I've posted the list of books the QFS came up with, stickied it as well to remind myself and others.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=4718

 

[Johnno]

In the first picture (Alpha Romea logo), I originally thought that somebody had stuck a sword into the poor unfortunate snakes mouth. Kind of like 'slaying the dragon'.

But, the second picture (the Visconti coat of arms) definately looks like a man half way in either snake or a dragon's mouth. I'm not sure if he is emerging or being devoured. I'm wondering if there is any 'link' between the symbology of 'man' and 'sword'? Could they be used interchangeably? ie. Man can be used as a sword to kill a dragon.

The original Alfa Romeo logo was like these

http://www.alfaclub.org.au/images/badge.htm

before being stylized in 1972. I thought it was a flame before finding out it was a man.

 

[Guest]

I found "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui way of knowledge." to be the least interesting book of Castaneda's work. It motly consists of various rituals and herbal preperations. "The Art of Dreaming" I find particularly interesting. "A Seperate Reality" and "Journey to Ixlan" are also quite good.

I like the take on the Serpent spitting out the man in question. However, the arms of the man are raised up, almost in horror, as if he is being devoured. The serpent symbol always gives me the willies, and I have been 'tipped off' several times whenever I encounter it in strange circumstances.

 

[Ryan]

Is "Tales of Power" any good?

Yep, quite good, although the "cliffhanger" ending is overly melodramatic and I suspect Castaneda might have begun to consider the Don Juan books a bit of a "gravy train" at that point.

I was trying to recall our conversation about which were the better of Castaneda's books. I picked up "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui way of knowledge." which I STILL can't get into....it may be a dud....it does have some gems in there. Too much mescal, oxalis and various other halucigenics , like a "saintly" Hunter S Thompson deal IMHO. There again I found Beelzebub's Tales throwing me into "mind swarm' until I started reading it properly.

I found "The Teachings of Don Juan" to be an interesting story, but too much about "phenomena" - the drug stuff really detracts from things. I guess it is the first book though, and was first published in the sixties. I think the interested reader could pretty much start from the third book - "Journey to Ixtlan" and go from there. Castaneda fills in enough of the back story and leaves out all the drug stuff, focusing more on the "shocks" that Don Juan was using to try and wake him up - a la Gurdjieff. The first few chapters of JtI reminded me quite a lot of some of the dialogues with Gurdjieff written down by his various students - they have that blunt, slightly mocking quality intended to break down buffers and self-importance.

Anyway, this is a bit off-topic, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[dantem]

Wow, thanks for that, I'm also an Alfa owner!

I've noticed that flame was quite odd, and I've said once that it was "like a little man", quite horrible.

The araldic symbol of the Serpent eating the man is generally called here "Il Biscione antropofago" or "The man-eating Serpent". But someone says that the Serpent, being a symbol of Earth and Fertility, can be likely generating a man, in this case... but no one really knows, and the symbol may be of Arabic-Oriental origin.

The guy's here has a peaceful face From a Milan's wall:

http://digilander.libero.it/Boromir/biscione.html

 

[joejoeba]

one could see the alfa symbol at the top as a warning to respect "the beast" (beast being the motor)as one would respect the cross. Do not cross the crowned majestic serpent when you are sat in it's mouth!( or driving seat!)

Further thinking on the name Alpha...linking to Adam and his old snaky connections. Or even suggesting the tragic machismo in shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet. Alpha male (Romeo meets his (("tragic")) death in love for his juliet ((car!!)). It all sings of male justification for the glorifying of a car using heraldic symbolism to give meaning to a machine.

 

[EmeraldHope]

Okay - long shot here maybe, but....is it possible that it is not a man at all, but a tuning fork type apparatus . See attached. Also see attached crop circle for same general idea.

 

[EmeraldHope]

FWIW, a search of images for " plasma discharge tuning fork" gives the attached.

 

[Yozilla]

Tnx Cyndi!

Somehow those pictures remind me of that "rotating" Irish dancers with one hand and knee up - like they are imitating the shape of chalice ...oooor -maybe i'm seeing chalices everywhere lately

I also used to drive Alfa Romeo car (il cuore sportivo!!! ) and, in fact had other nickname in mind when registering on this forum: Alfa Loser - quite contradictory construction ha?

 

[EmeraldHope]

Tnx Cyndi!

Somehow those pictures remind me of that "rotating" Irish dancers with one hand and knee up - like they are imitating the shape of chalice ...oooor -maybe i'm seeing chalices everywhere lately

I also used to drive Alfa Romeo car (il cuore sportivo!!! ) and, in fact had other nickname in mind when registering on this forum: Alfa Loser - quite contradictory construction ha?

Thanks Yozilla. Interesting,now that you mention it on the dancers. I see what you mean. They werea " bloodline" which also ties into the research I have been doing on this symbol in relation to the crop circle above. Also ties in with the chalice. I've been working with that for a while - see profile pic.




See attached - Saint John Serpent in Chalice, and also the mitochondian which fits here with theme and shape as well.