Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part III: The Quintessence - The Fellowship of Pentalpha

A floor mosaic - featuring a stellated dodecahedron - in St Mark's Basilica, Venice by Paolo Uccello circa 1430.

Featured in the center of the image (above) and in center of the image inset left is the geometrical figure known as the small stellated dodechahedron.

I don't know that this polyhedron has any specific esoterica attached to it - apart from it's obvious relationship with the pentagram and the regular dodecahedron - and, yet, its presence in the mosaic  and the print seem to hold a special significance for both artists... in spite of the fact that more than 400 years and several countries separated them.

Maurits Cornelis (M.C.) Escher (1898-1972), was a Dutch graphic artist especially known for the mathematical figures and motifs in his work, while Italian painter, Paolo Uccello, was not. Uccello accomplished amazing feats of perspective in his paintings, but his online oeuvre contains only one other example of a geometric solid. And, yet, it's his polyhedron which is unquestionably the "star" of the mosaic at St. Mark's basilica... surrounded by what looks like a string of... well, sliced zucchini (but don't quote me). In any case, regardless of the vegetables, his dodecahedron is a powerful icon.

In M.C. Escher's still-life, however, the same stellated polyhedron has become an illuminated life form... or a small, extraterrestrial vehicle which has landed in a patch of earthly refuse... a broken egg, bottle, pipe, discarded tin can, etc. It seems as if the two images could not be less alike.

But, there is one continuum between Uccello's mosaic and Escher's drawing.  Both images glorify the stellated dodecahedron while, at the same time, revealing its fundamental source: the pentagram.

Inset left is a great shot of Escher inking in a most amazing spiral. The full image - Sphere Surface with Fish - is below the jump.

Sphere Surface with Fish, 1959, M. C. Escher.

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Marktkirche St. Georgii et Jacobi (14th century), Hanover, Germany.

"The recurrent theme of the five-pointed star is one of the most mysterious, universal, and, paradoxically, largely ignored elements of human history; and is therefore one of the least understood, despite its indubitable significance. It made its appearance in the first known human civilization and is used today as the insignia of various institutions; from modern Pagan religions such as Wicca to Abrahamic faiths such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; from bronze-age occult traditions like Judeo-Christian Gnosticism to secret societies like the Freemasons... to modern world-powers such as the United States of America. It has appeared in every major civilization... there exists no continent on which this symbol remains absent. The significance, oft ignored due to the expectation that every culture place great mythological or symbolic importance on the stars, lies in the fact that the human eye perceives stars as having only four symmetrical points or even being mere round dots, while round and four-pointed star symbols are almost nonexistent compared to the ubiquity of the pentagram."

- Another quote - and a couple of insights - from Dustin Jon Scott (see Part II). The first being the plethora of pentagrams across the globe with a number of time periods involved. For example, the two representations of pentagrams above are both found on churches. The first church is an example of "brick-gothic," with a seemingly more modern, minimalist version of the pentagram. It is the elderly of the two churches... built in Hanover, Germany in the 1300s by, we can assume, German architects and masons. And, this shouldn't surprise us. This was the world Albrecht Dürer entered 100 years later.

From an Atlas Obscura article:

"Of course, the truth is that both five-pointed and six-pointed stars have a long, fluid history in Germany, first used by Teutonic pagans and then adopted by Christians as their own symbol at the time the church was built. The pentagram, in particular, was often used as a symbol of the epiphany."

The second is a little more unusual. St. Mary's Catholic Church with its almost Baroque pentagram (rose) window (inset right, above) was built in 1876..,. in Massillon, Ohio, USA. Really.

But, this also shouldn't surprise us because, as it so happens, St. Mary's has a rather cosmopolitan history. The parish was primarily made up of German and Irish immigrants. Moreover, the designers of the building include one French stonemason whom eventually became an architect in his own right, a man named John Baptist (Jean-Baptiste?) Verment, about whom we read:

"Verment, who immigrated from France and attended Notre Dame before making his way to Massillon, helped design St. Mary Catholic Church, sculpting stonework for the church and cemetery before working on St. Joseph. He also designed churches in Sandusky, Toledo and Canton. He is buried in St. Mary's cemetery in his family's plot."

The quote was found in an intriguing news article about a time capsule found hidden in St. Mary's church. Spoiler alert: one is never made privy to the actual contents of the capsule. There is also another architect involved - Leon Beaver - who, apart from having some architectural designs entered in a competition involving the Library of Congress - via what I could find on the internet seems to fallen off the face of the earth.

Nor I could I find any mention of the pentagram window on St. Mary's website. And, I might add, this seems to be a trend among churches with pentagrams. Terribly hush-hush, if you know what I mean.

In other words, a great deal more research is required to get a true understanding of the pentagram window on the face of St. Mary's church, but something tells me there' might be an interesting story somewhere down that leg of this journey.

In any case, we don't know the story. What we do know, however, is that St. Mary's was a unique European-American church which eventually acquired a set of 17 stained-glass windows from Chartres, France, and its own Irish Saint, Dymphna, the Patron Saint of "Nervous Disorders"... which is the polite way of saying "the mentally ill" (see Wiki link). Saint Dymphna's sculpted image at St. Mary's is inset left above.

Actually, if we're being honest, St. Dymphna might be the go-to saint of the 21st century. Pilgrimage, anybody? Her feast day is May 15. Another version of her story is found here.

Incidentally, if you ventured over to Dymphna's Wiki entry, you'll have found the painting (inset right) The Beheading of Saint Dymphna by Godfried Maes (1649 -1700), a Belgian artist from our much-discussed Baroque period. I can't test this, but, well, it looks to me as if we have another golden spiral artist to add to the collection!

Note (12/14/22): In the original .jpeg of "...Saint Dymphna," the archway wasn't quite as visible and I missed its interesting curve. Reassessing the painting, I think Godfried Maes' golden spiral is more extraordinary than I first thought. It may be a branching GTS, or some other multiple we haven't yet seen.  D

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Cruciform diffraction spikes.

But, there is another point made in Scott's quote, and, that is, why do we depict stars with 5 arms when we never actually see them that way? Diffraction spikes - a sort of optical illusion - generally gives us spikes in 4, 6, and multiples thereof, so, while one might see a 10 pointed star, the eye will never see five.

The ancient Egyptians did use 5-fold shapes to represent stars in a night sky, and we, in contemporary times, tend to designate pentagrams as stars from childhood -  The Little Prince (inset right) with his iconic star is a timeless example. But, as far as we know, there is no cause and effect happening here.

So, who came up with the 5-pointed star meme? In actuality, the pentagram star is a kind of multi-civilizational hieroglyph; we just don't know who made it up... well, unless it was the Egyptians... despite the fact that their stars looked like marine animals.

But, as is usual when researching rabbit-holes, I just happened to come upon a Wiccan article which addressed 5-fold stars in American history, naming the likes of George Washington and his fellow Freemasons - including French Freemason, Lafayette - as the possible instigators behind the pentagram/stars on the American flag... which, consequently, would (possibly) set a precedent for the meme. But, on an international level? Well, it could happen. Keep in mind that, for a Freemason, the pentagram, the Blazing Star, primarily symbolized fellowship... as the pentagram also primarily symbolized fellowship for the persecuted Pythagoreans. And, if you consider it - possibly for those who participated in the American revolution as well.

And, there is another group for whom this may have been true. While there are those who find the presence of the pentagram sinister - and certainly much has been made of this in regards to the group of which I speak - it is the presence of the pentagram in Knights Templar churches that distinguish them from the many others.

Many just happen to be found in Portugal. Inset left (above) is the small pentagram window at Church of Santa Maria do Olival in Tomar, which became the final resting place of Portuguese Templar, Grandmaster, Gualdim Pais (1118 –1195). Inset right, is a pretty window found in the Hermitage of St. Bartolome in Spain. Note that this might be variation of the Rose Pentagram... the second; the first found in Portugal.

There's a possibility that the Templar pentagram was the earliest use of the pentagram as a military symbol although, in other instances, it might symbolize St. Mary (of which we know there are two). Then again, it may have been a reference to the pentagram's use in Jerusalem. Note the pentagram (below) found at Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem.

"The Pentalpha of Pythagorus or Pentangle of Solomon has five lines, five angles and is among masons the outline origin of the five-pointed star and an emblem of fellowship."

- Another quote by Albert Pike from Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, 1871. While I do understand the pentagram as "an emblem of fellowship" I am also aware of another Pike quote... stating that the symbols for the rose and the pentagram are "interchangeable."

This tells us that the true and complete symbolism of the pentagram will always remain sub-rosa.

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Alas, there is more to come continuing the same theme as this post, but I've decided the remainder will need a separate post. I'll try to have it up before the end of the year, and post the link here. Stay tuned.

Previously: Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part II: The Quintessence - The Egyptian Duat

Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part I: the Roman Dodecahedra