Origins
A library card, filled out by
Carthusian [2] fathers, that was attached to the manuscript states that the images belonged to the French seer
Nostradamus[3] (
1503-
1566). This card indicates that the codex was brought to Rome by Nostradamus' son
César de Nostredame in order to be donated to cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who would later become
Pope Urban VIII (
1623-
1644).
Style
Plate 18.
The images are similar to several manuscripts of the
11th and
12th centuries, and seem to have been inspired by the prophecies of the Blessed
Joachin of Fiore [4], a
Cistercian monk from
Calabria. Basing his predictions upon the
The Revelation of St. John, da Fiore indicated that the
Apocalypse was to begin in the year
1260.
It has been claimed
[1] that these drawings, which contain symbolic objects, letters, animals, crossings of banners, bugles, crosses, candles, etc., seeming to form figures similar to Roman numerals, or veiled references to last names, represent the succession of the Roman
Popes.
For example, Saint
Pope Pius X (born Giuseppe Sarto) is depicted as a pontiff on a throne with a cloth held by angels in the background. As sarto is the Italian word for "tailor," the cloth is a visual pun on his surname. Likewise,
Pope Pius VI (born Barnaba Chiaramonti), who was held captive in France by
Napoleon and his revolutionaries, is drawn as a Pope in monkish vestments with a rose in one fist and a scythe in the other. A letter "B" is drawn in the nearby soil, with a clear view of mountains in the background (chiaramonti means "clear mountains").
The images may contain prophesies spanning a period of 400 years, beginning with the first decades of
17th century, and ending in the first decades of the
21st century. Some drawings seem to be references to historical events that affected the development of the papacy, such as the first, which indicates the approval of the rule of
Saint Francis of Sales.
There are images which have been linked to the
French Revolution, to the conflicts between
France and
Spain for the control of the Vatican, and to the interval between World Wars
I and
II (the coat of arms of
Pope Pius XI, Achille Ratti, is clearly depicted).
A Pope is attacked.
A Pope is attacked
The 10th tableau of the codex shows an imposing pontiff holding a pastoral sceptre with an image of Mary, behind his shoulders a
pike-alabarde, being attacked by a soldier with a
scimitar in his hand. This drawing reminds supporters of the events of
13 May 1981, when the Turk
Mehmet Ali Ağca fired a pistol at Pope
John Paul II, hitting him in the abdomen. It should also be noted that the scimitar was a popular Turkish weapon at the time. John Paul II's coat of arms contained the "M" of Mary, with the Latin motto "Totus Tuus" ("All for You").
9/11, Kabbalah, Black Pope
There also seem to be references to the
Second Vatican Council, the
war in Bosnia in 1994-1999, and, in a picture of a stubby tower wrapped in anthropomorphic flames, possibly a prophecy of the
attack on the
New York World Trade Center in 2001.
Another image appears to show a
kabbalistic [5] proceeding: seated in front of a shield of a rione (a section of Rome) is a man with a very long beard, covering a book with a sheet with spaced holes, possibly representing the use of an inequal letter jump-extraction similar to those of the
Kabbalah. For author Cesare Ramotti, Nostradamus' Kabbalah corresponds to the extraction sequence of 1-5-5-5, a code similar to that used by Jewish scholars in extracting "hidden meanings" from the
Torah. See
Bible code.
Some images are extremely mysterious and may be linked to Nostradamus' quatrains. For example, one image shows one of the two unicorns, another an eel with a human head rising out of a lake. It is possible that this may be the horrible poisson (horrible fish) of Nostradamus' quatrain, III.21
[2], which Nostradamus predicted would appear in the
Adriatic Sea, and which inspired the film
La dolce vita by
Federico Fellini.
The third secret of Our Lady of Fatima?
The last image represents the escape from a fortified city of a dark- or black-skinned high Bishop (The Black Pope?) and his court, while all around them we see the slaughter of clergymen of many races. This image has been hypothetically connected to the revealed third of the
Three Secrets of Fatima.
Probable source: Marston MS 225
A work similar to this is Marston MS 225
[6], which can be found in the manuscript and rare-book library of
Yale University, in
New Haven,
Connecticut, USA. This manuscript comes from the German areas of
Bavaria and
Bohemia, probably from within the courts of emperor
Frederick III and
Maximilian I. It has been proposed that this document may have had an impact among the various sovereigns of the
Holy Roman Empire.
