Rectifying Ruggieri





   Miss Alexis was eager to visit Chateau Chassay, yet for her part, managed to contain her glee. The ride over on her Vespa was lovely, and appealed to the De Brie girl's placid Piscean love of the outdoors and the beauty of Nature.

   When she arrived, Count Carlo was quick to squire her through the main hall out to the rear of the chateau. He knew that she would be pleased at what she saw.

   "I want to take you out on the terrace, Alexis. You probably haven't witnessed such beauty yet. We'll sit and look out on the valley and plan our quest for new Sybils," he said with a dedicated grin.

   "Oh Carlo! Why I thought...oh, thank you sir, thank you ever so!" Alexis chirped, thrilled that the Astrologer had consented to becoming a Lovestarz Sybil.

   The two proceeded out the back entrance, and Carlo said, "Look. Did you ever see anything more beautiful in your life?" One arm was around Alexis's waist. With the other he made a sweeping gesture. Beyond the terrace, an open bank, framed on either side by thick foliage, plunged suddenly downwards to a rolling pasture and where the brilliant grass was shadowed here and there by clusters of pointed firs and graceful beeches. Only the narrow silver ribbon of a winding stream seemed to divide this intimate pasture from the wide, unbroken stretches of the Vallee d' Les Andelys. If there were roads, the greenery had engulfed them; if there were buildings, these too had been concelead in the valley's deep embrace. On the farther side of the valley, a second slope, rising more gently than the one flanking the chateau, was studded with neat orchards planted in rows of restful precision, which reached to the quiet skyline. Gazing at the scene spread out before her in such spaciousness and silence, Alexis was struck again, as she had been that morning, by the endless variety of rich and brilliant verdure in which the countryside abounded. Yet now she saw this in far greater expanse than the view from either the hedged highways or the woodland roads had at any time permitted. Around and about her were nothing but an emerald Earth and an azure sky meeting in exquisite harmony.

   "Did I lead you to expect too much? Or is it as beautiful as you hoped?"

   "As I hoped! It's beautiful beyond anything I ever saw or imagined."

   While she was speaking, a glow so brilliant that the very trees were gilded in its reflecion overspread the sky. Then as the Sun sank slowly, long bands of rose and amethyst, shading into each other, began to stretch across the horizon, and instead of fading, only moved and changed. The amethyst turned to pearl at the north and turquoise at the south; the bands of rose widened and separated, blowing away like feathers; soon they were merely pink wisps of cloud overhead. Lights began to twinkle in the distance, revealing houses previously hidden; but sheltering stillness continued to enfold the valley. And suddenly, above the lingering rose, a great star glowed in solitary splendor. Brilliant as the young Moon, and far more beautiful, it spread its glory over Earth and Heaven alike. Beneath its rays the light mist rising from the valley turned to silver, and the sapphire of the sky grew luminous. Alexis gazed in rapt astonishment.

   "Oh Carlo, look! I have never seen such a beautiful star before either!"

   "Of course you have. You've that same star hundreds of times before."

   "I have? Where? When?"

   "Wherever you've been. Whenever you've looked at a clear evening sky. It's Venus, you know."

   "Then the difference is that I never saw it over this valley before and that I never saw it with you. I thought, walking back from the woods at my place..."

"   Yes Alexis, I did too."

   "So first we saw the Yule stars together and now we're seeing the star of love together - I've discovered them with you. You revealed them to me. Not only the stars but their meaning. You've given me a complete and perfect revelation of a new Heaven and a new Earth. This..." - her eyes again sought the valley - "is part of the revelation. But this..." - she raised her lips to his - "is what made it possible for me to see it in all its glory."

   The two shared a friendly kiss, and then went back inside, and took a seat by the fire, and began to discuss the family history of Count Carlo.

   Alexis lowered her gaze and spoke soberly. "My dear Carlo, do you think we shall ever make people listen to other revelations as well, revelations such as the fact that men such as Nostradamus were frauds, and that the Renaissance was borne from the soul of Paganism? I mean, anybody worth their esoteric salt knows that Catherine de Medici's favorite adviser and official Astrologer, Roger l'Ancien, was Pagan, and the real mover and shaker of 16th century divination...ohmigods, Carlo...was he...?"

   "Yes," the Count whispered, enthralled by the mention of his kin's little known moniker. "Roger was Cosimo Ruggiero, my great-grandfather thrice removed. Catherine called him 'Roger', as well as 'Cosme' affectionately. She spent most of her evenings in his tower, accessed by a secret passage from her own boudoir, and the two would stargaze and discuss the future of France, Western Europe,..."

   "And amore, Carlo? She must have found his sublime Italian ways simply irresistable...I bet he got that a lot, though," Alexis continued with a tender smile and a rather direct wink.

   "Yes Alexis, I would have to agree. He probably got more than 'that' a lot. Let me tell you a little story. There lived a man for whom Catherine cared more than for any of her children; his name was Cosimo Ruggiero. He lived in a house belonging to her, the hotel de Soissons; she made him her supreme advisor. It was his duty to tell her whether the stars ratified the advice and judgment of her ordinary counsellors. Certain remarkable antecedents warranted the power which Cosimo retained over his mistress to her last hour. One of the most learned men of the sixteenth century was physician to Lorenzo de Medici, the Duke of Urbino, Catherine's father. The physician was called Ruggiero the Elder - Vecchio Ruggier and Roger l'Ancien by the French authors who have written on alchemy - to distiguish him from his two sons, Lorenzo Ruggiero, called the Great by cabalistic writers, and Cosimo Ruggiero, Catherine's astrologer, also called Roger by several French historians. In France it was custom to pronounce the name in general as Ruggieri. Ruggiero the elder was so highly valued by the Medici that the two dukes, Cosimo and his brother Lorenzo, stood godfathers to his own two sons. He cast, in concert with the famous mathematician, Basilio, the horoscope of Catherine's nativity, in his official capacity as mathematician, astrologer, and physician to the house of Medici; three offices which are often confounded.

   In the 17th century, when much of this history was transcribed, the occult sciences were studied with an ardor that may have surprised the incredulous minds of the times, which were supremely analytical. Perhaps such minds may have found in that historical sketch the dawn, or rather the germ, of the positive sciences which flowered in the nineteenth century, though without the poetic grandeur given to them by the audacious Seekers of the sixteenth, who, instead of using them solely for mechanical industries, magnified Art and fertilized Thought by their means. The protection universally given to occult science by the sovereigns of those days was justified by the noble creations of many inventors, who, starting their quest of the Great Work - the so-called philosphers' stone - attained astonishing results. At no period were the sovereigns of the world more eager for the study of these mysteries. The Fuggers in Ausburg, and all bankers then, were gifted with powers of calculation it would be difficult to surpass. Well, those practical men, who loaned the funds of all Europe to the sovereigns of the sixteenth century - as deeply in debt as the kings of the present day - those illustrious guests of Charles V, were sleeping partners in the crucibles of Paracelsus. At the beginning of the sixteenth, Ruggiero the elder was the head of that secret university from which issued the Cardans, the Nostradamuses, and the Agrippas - all in their turn physicians to the house of Valois; also the astronomers, astrologers, and alchemists who surrounded the princes of Christendom and were more especially welcomed and protected in France by Catherine de Medici. In the nativity drawn by Basilio and Ruggiero the elder, the principal events of Catherine's life were foretold with a correctness which is quite disheartening for those who deny the power of occult science. The horoscope predicted the misfortunes which during the seige of Florence imperilled the beginning of her life; also her marriage with a son of a king of France, the unexpected succession of that son to his father's throne, the birth of her children, their number, and the fact that three of her sons whould be kings in succession, that two of her daughters would be queens, and that all of them were destined to die without posterity. This prediction was so fully realized that many historians have assumed that it was written after the events.

   It was for the the use of Cosimo Ruggiero, her mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer, that Catherine de Medici erected the tower behind the Halle aux Bles - all that now remains of the hotel de Soissons. Cosimo possessed, like confessors, a mysterious influence, the possession of which, like them again, sufficed him. He cherished an ambitious thought superior to all vulgar ambitions. This man, whom dramatists and romance-writers depict as a juggler, owned the rich abbey of Saint-Mahe in Lower Brittany, and refused many high ecclesiastical dignities; the gold which the superstitious passions of the age poured into his coffers sufficed for his secret enterprise; and the queen's hand, stretched above his head, preserved every hair of it from danger.

   Did Cosimo father any of her children, you wonder, I can see. Well, Catherine de Medici married Henry II when she was the tender age of 14. She did not bear children until she was nearly 24. Either Henry was shooting blanks, or she consciously or subconciously...often there is little difference...held out for her dear Cosme. Look at her children...were they more like Henry? I don't believe so. And while it might be enticing to call the Ruggieri opportunistic, well, I will concede that Italians do have an odd way of always winding up on the winning side. Yet, I believe that Cosimo and Catherine were childhood playmates, and eventually lovers, and that in her 14 years as a Florentine...gods Alexis...they probably played Spin the Olive Oil Bottle a few times!"

   Carlo continued on. "Though superior himself to the ablest men at court, perhaps even to Catherine de' Medici herself, Cosimo Ruggieri always recognized his brother Lorenzo as his master. Buried in studious solitude, the old savant weighed and estimated sovereigns, most of whom were worn out by the perpetual turmoil of politics, the crises of which at this period came so suddenly and were so keen, so intense, so unexpected. He knew their ennui, their lassitude, their disgust with things about them; he knew the ardor with which they sought what seemed to them new or strange or fantastic; above all, how they loved to enter some unknown intellectual region to escape their endless struggle with men and events. To those who have exhausted statecraft, nothing remains but the realm of pure thought. Charles the Fifth proved this by his abdication. Charles IX, who wrote sonnets and forged blades to escape the exhausting cares of an age in which both throne and king were threatened, to whom royalty had brought only cares and never pleasures, was likely to be roused to a high pitch of interest by the bold denial of his power thus uttered by Lorenzo. Religious doubt was not surprising in an age when Catholicism was so violently arraigned; but the upsetting of all religion, given as the basis of a strange, mysterious art, would surely strike the king's mind, and drag it from its present preoccupations. The essential thing for the two brothers was to make the king forget his suspicions by turning his mind to new ideas."

   "Fascinating, Carlo. Please don't stop, my friend," and the Count did as he was asked by the enchanted Peyton girl, who was covered with goosebumps.

   "They were glorious martyrs, Miss Alexis; they had the welfare of the race at heart; they had failed but, like us all, live again in their successors. As they went through their existence, they discovered secrets with which they endowed the liberal and the mechanical arts. From their furnaces gleamed lights which illumined industrial enterprises, and perfected them. Gunpowder issued from their alembics; nay, they had mastered the lightning. In their persistent vigils laid political revolutions."

   "Lorenzo and Cosimo...all the Ruggieri, Miss Alexis, were the true alchemists. They believed in man's power to control the elements. Fabulous and uncomprehended beings, like Prometheus, Diana, Adonis, Pan, and others, who have entered into the religious beliefs of all countries and all ages, prove to the world that the hopes that the Ruggieri embodied, were born with the human races. Chaldea, India, Persia, Egypt, Greece, the Moors, have transmitted from one to another Magic, the highest of all the occult sciences, which holds within it, as a precious deposit the fruits of the studies of each generation.

   Lorenzo Ruggiero was the sovereign leader of that people, sovereign by election, not by birth. He guided them onward to a knowledge of the essence of life. Grand-masters, Red-Cross-bearers, companions, Adepts, they forever followed the imperceptible molecule which still escapes our eyes. They held out supreme hope that they would make their eyes more powerful than those which Nature had given them; that they would attain to a sight of the primitive atom, the corpuscular element so persistently sought by the wise and learned of all ages who had preceded them in the glorious search. Miss Alexis, when a man is astride of that abyss, when he commands bold divers like the Ruggieri disciples, all other human interests are as nothing; therefore, they were not dangerous. Religious disputes and political struggles were far away from them; they had passed beyond and above them. No man takes others by the throat when his whole strength is given to a struggle with Nature. Besides, in their science, results were perceivable; they could measure effects and predict them; whereas all things are uncertain and vacillating in the struggles of men and their selfish interests. They decomposed the diamond in their crucibles, and they made diamonds, they made gold! They tested the wind, and they made wind; they made light; they renewed the face of empires with new industries. Yet they never debased themselves to mount a throne to be crucified by the peoples! And all the while, they had the continuing protection and secret patronage of the Medici. They were all Florentines, Miss Alexis...they were tight, they watched each others' backs. The Ruggieri reigned the esoteric community in Europe for nearly two centuries. Old Cosimo lived to see the Medici fall in France."

   "Alas, the hardy Italian vine, when transplanted in the shale of French soil, withered and finally died. It was Margot, actually," Miss Alexis continued, "that Gemini daughter of the Aries queen-mother Catherine, who is widely accepted as the beginning of the end. All of Catherine's children were ineffectual as rulers, though. The sons died young, and Margot was barren, and, well, a Gemini...scattering her strengths and abilities indiscriminately, as most Geminis do. The Medici control of France pretty much ended with Catherine, in my opinion."





   "Yes Alexis, it pretty much did. And do keep in mind the astrological concept of the Precession of the Ages here. Catherine was born in Florence on April 13, 1519, it is true. Yet back then, because of the Precession...Catherine would have been a two degree Taurus Sun. She had Venus all over her really...Taurus Sun, Libra Moon, Venus in Taurus, Jupiter in Libra, and Uranus in Taurus...perhaps even Venus Rising! Her Saturn in Capricorn is what made her a strong ruler. It's three-degree opposition to her Mars in Cancer was where Cosimo came in."

   "A Taurus girl, huh? She had Mercury in Aries too, like myself. And the Ruggieri...did they make poisons...for the Medici and for others?" Alexis queried, now aware that she was finally trapped in a time warp of ero-esoterica, the exact place that she had always hoped to be, and that she could only yield to her captor, the imminent Count Carlo Ruggieri Ravin. "I mean I know that they were alchemists, and knew all the hip spells and potions of the day...yet I simply do not accept that they were murderers. I am all too aware of how historians often turn fiction into fact. Yet, did the Ruggieri ever kill for their beloved Catherine through vile concoctions?"


   "And you, Count Carlo? Where is your place in all this? Who were the Ravins?" Alexis segued, determined to learn where the Count's tender heart came from. She knew that a bloodline like the Ruggieri would yield more opportunistic, consolidating, Capricornian characteristics. Yet Count Carlo had none of that. Alexis was certain that he had strong Earth and Water placements. Yet she did not feel that his character was, well, Ruggieristic! She glided across the room and took her place beside the Count on an exquisite sofa, she thought probably crafted in old Gepetto's shop. Her eyes communicated a true sense of longing, and the Count sensed her genuine Piscean interest and responded, albeit guardedly.

   "Well Miss Alexis, let me make a long story short. The Ruggieri were, for all intents and purposes, Italian magicians. Folks like this usually tend to favor their own. Along the line, they married into the estimable Ravin family of Calabria. The Ravins were, well, Witches. And we still are. Strega, more accurately...Italian Witches...and I am no different. Does that help, my friend? I do want to answer you clearly, yet the details are probably beyond the scope of this conversation. Perhaps someday we can get into it more, yet please accept my explanation today. The Ruggieri married into a line of Calabrian Strega, and now the distinction is blurred, and the Ruggieri mostly forgotten, which is why I often only go by Carlo Ravin. It is true, I am titled a Count, yet before and beyond that, I am very simply a man."

   Alexis sighed her agreement with the way Carlo had concluded their discussion, and knew that she was now his loyal friend and subject, and would seek to learn from him the ways of esoterica which he surely possessed, and not only by his blood, yet by his compassion, valor, and potent Italian sex appeal.





   "One last thing Carlo. Would you escort me to the opening of Monsieur Tommy Hawk's opening of his new line, Crazy Corset Queens? It is this weekend, and I fear I would otherwise go alone. I do share your discontent of paparazzi, yet...well, I just thought I would ask," and the De Brie girl glanced toward the floor, truly not sure if she had just had another Mercury in Aries moment, or if her request was reasonable after all."

   "Miss Alexis, I would be honored to escort you to your party. Tommy is a friend of mine as well as yours, and I know that he would happy to see us both, especially in attendance together. I will pick you up at a time you will designate. Call me when you have the particulars, and I assure you that I will overlook the paparazzi, if you will assure me that you will as well. You see, they will be looking to photograph me anyway, even though I ignore them. Can you do that?"

   "Yes, Count Carlo. And neither will I mind the debs and supermodels and whatever leggy creatures happen to stride up to our table to make small talk with you. I thank you for your decision to take me, and yes, I shall e-mail you this week. And I'm off! Got to help my father with some baklava he is making for another one of Posh's Poussin parties. Chat soon, Carlo...I will show myself out"

   And with that, Ferragamo boots hit polished wood, as the Piscean sauntered through the main hall, and sped off on her Vespa once again.



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