Aelia Laelia Crispis
The Aelia Laelia Crispis is a Latin marble inscription in Bologna , which is located there today in the Museo Civico Medievale di Palazzo Ghisilardi-Fava and has been the cause of speculation since the 16th century.
It is first mentioned in the 16th century as an inscription in the church of Santa Maria di Casaralta in Bologna. There had been a monastery of the Ordo militiae Mariae Gloriosae ( Frati gaudenti ) since the 13th century . It was secularized around 1550. The inscription was copied in the 17th century by the house owner Achille Volta on a red marble slab that still exists today (without the last verses).
The inscription is supposed to simulate a Roman epitaph of an Aelia Laelia Crispis, made by Lucius Agatho Priscius.
The inscription reads: DM Aelia Laelia Crispis. Nec vir nec mulier nec androgyna. Nec puella nec iuvenis nec anus. Nec casta nec meretrix nec pudica sed omnia. Sublata neque fame neque ferro neque ueneno. Sed omnibus. Nec coelo nec aquis nec terris. Sed ubique iacet. Lucius Agatho Priscius. Nec maritus nec amator nec necessarius. Neque moerens neque gaudens neque flens. Hanc nec molem nec pyramidem nec sepulchrum. Sed omnia. Scit et nescit cui posuerit .
Translation:
DM Aelia Laelia Crispis. Neither man nor woman nor hybrids. Neither child, nor youth, nor old. Neither modest, nor dissolute, nor shy, but everything. Not killed by hunger, sword or poison, but by all together. Neither in heaven, in water, or on earth, but resting everywhere. Lucius Agatho Priscius. Neither married nor lover nor related. Neither mourning, nor joy or tears. [Builds] no burial mound, pyramid, or tomb, but everything. He knows and does not know who it is dedicated to .
Added to this are verses lost today:
Hoc est sepulchrum intus cadaver non habens. Hoc est cadaver sepulchrum extra non have. Sed cadaver idem est et sepulchrum sibi ( This is a tomb without a corpse in it, this is a corpse without a tomb around it, but the body and the tomb are the same )
There was speculation that this was a puzzling question and the solution was rainwater, according to other Niobe, and there were also alchemical interpretations ( Nicolas Barnaud , reprinted in Theatrum Chemicum and the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa ). Other alchemists who dealt with her were Georg Wolfgang Wedel , Ole Borch , Michael Maier . Today it is often thought of as a typical humanistic puzzle game.
Carlo Cesare Malvasia (Aelia Laelia Crispis non nata resurgens) listed 43 authors as early as 1683 who dealt with it, including Athanasius Kircher . It is mentioned in novels by Walter Scott and Gérard de Nerval and Carl Gustav Jung studied it.
literature
- Nicola Muschitiello (Ed.): Aelia Laelia. Il mistero della Pietra di Bologna . Il Mulino, Bologna 2000.
- Franco Bacchelli (Ed.): Un enigma bolognese. Le molte vite di Aelia Laelia Crispis . Costa Editore, Bologna 2000.