Every journey begins with a magician’s trick.
In the Tarots, the first card is that of the Magician, or Jongleur.
A young man stands behind a table, with the tools of his trade scattered before him: a cup, a knife, a coin, a wand. The same four symbols that would later become the suits of divination — representing body, thought, soul, and will.
The Jongleur is not yet a magician, but no longer a fool: he is learning to transform reality through gesture. His wisdom is uncertain, ambiguous — balanced between deceit and revelation.
Like every beginning, it carries both promise and danger.
It is with this image that I enter the second milestone of my journey — a night scented with linden and wine, where Gnosis mingles with flesh like smoke with incense.
The night in Florence is cool and sparkling. From the streets around Piazza Tasso rise the smells of linden and wine, wax and ancient dampness.
The hall of the former convent of the Leopoldine, now public property, is filled with rows of chairs set beneath vaulted ceilings and ochre-colored walls.
At the center of an apse-shaped niche, a white screen projects the title of the conference: “The Gnostic Master Francis of Assisi.”
The event is organized by the Nuova Accademia Gnostica di Firenze, a non-profit association “open to all people, regardless of race, sex, or religion.”
On stage, a man with a strong South American accent speaks calmly of a universal knowledge — Gnosis — said to be the root of every spiritual tradition.
Some take notes, others yawn, a few keep their eyes closed, absorbed as if in prayer.
I sit in the back row, wearing a Palestinian kefiyah and a sweatshirt with a pink star on the chest and, on the back, the words: “When in doubt, I argue.”
I’m not sure what brought me here — curiosity, perhaps, or that invisible thread connecting what I study and what I dream — a thread that grows harder each day to disguise as “academic production,” at least as academia now understands it.
On the screen, the image of Saint Francis before the Crucifix of San Damiano slowly dissolves into a quote by Samael Aun Weor, and then into the serpent Kundalini.
I hurriedly Google this Samael, coming away with mixed feelings, while the speaker describes Francis as an “initiate” and Clare as his “bride,” two halves of a union that does not deny the flesh but transfigures it.
I think about the body, about its ambiguous sanctity; about the Church Fathers, and Gnosticism’s mistrust of matter — and I find myself grimacing.
I don’t feel like a being of light trapped in a body; I feel like a poor thinking monkey, haunted by the ghosts of the dead and, worse still, by those of capitalism.
When I seek reunion with the Spirit, I don’t wish to rise above my body — I want to make peace with it.
The systematic devaluation of the flesh, served in the sauces of every religion — even when disguised as sexual magic, where energy is “preserved” through abstinence and non-ejaculation (a deeply male-centered notion, don’t you think?) — doesn’t appeal to me at all.
I think back to Lou von Salomé’s words at the Café del Verone, and I’m convinced she was right:
“The divine comes alive when the body laughs at itself, and the soul stops pretending it has no orifices.”
When the conference ends, I step out into the square. The air is taut and alive, full of voices scattering in every direction.
Something feels unfinished — an invitation, perhaps, or a calling.
I cross the square slowly. In my bag, beside my ever-present notebook, a flyer announces the next event: a course in Gnostic meditation I doubt I’ll attend.
Tuesday nights are for Risiko, and I think I prefer that — though, as always, it will depend on impulse.
I pause beneath the streetlamps, look up at the black sky over the Oltrarno, and feel, clear as day, that the night is not yet over.
I walk down toward the Arno, following the yellow lights of the lamps. The air is cold, alive, heavy with moisture and omens.
The cobblestones echo my steps as if they remembered others — ancient ones, lighter, barefoot, in sandals.
A scent of ozone and jasmine tells me I’ve crossed a threshold.
With each breath, the city grows thinner, as if behind the surface of Florence another city were emerging — invisible, but just as real: a constellation of souls in motion, each lost in its own small madness.
“What did you think of the lecture?”
The voice comes from behind me. I turn. Lou von Salomé is watching me, her smile both cruel and maternal, her face lit by a light not of this world.
Beside her, barefoot and radiant, his eyes fever-bright, stands Francis of Assisi.
“To be honest,” I reply, “it seemed too intent on mapping the sky. I like maps — but it’s the treasure hunt itself that makes the journey beautiful, and life worth living. A sterile search, without vertigo or recognition of the body, doesn’t move me.”
Lou nods. “Gnostics love knowledge the way bureaucrats love stamps. But the knowledge that saves cannot be stored — it’s breathed, like the wind.”
Francis chuckles softly. “Wind and dust, sister. Knowledge is useless unless it teaches you to laugh at yourself.”
We walk together across Ponte Santa Trinita, then along Via Tornabuoni, stopping for a moment before the Column of Justice.
No one seems to notice us — as if we were visible only to each other.
Francis studies the statue — its feminine armor, its sword, its scales — and murmurs:
“One day they called me mad. And they were right. The Lord said to me: ‘Francis, be a new fool in this world.’ And I believed Him. Madness is the only way not to turn love into a rule.”
Lou listens, fascinated. “You embodied what most men never dared: a Christ without power, a prophet without dogma. They followed you not for your doctrine, but because you stripped it away.”
Francis smiles. “And yet even that nakedness became an institution. It’s the curse of pure things — they survive only when disguised as rules.”
I turn to Lou. “And Mary Magdalene? They stripped her too — just to silence her.”
Lou flares like a flame. “She is the lost key, the carnal memory of Christ. Her Gospel says it clearly: there is no resurrection that does not pass through the matter that has been loved.
Love is knowledge, but only when it burns — otherwise it’s doctrine, not fire. The churches have always feared that.”
We walk on, past Palazzo Strozzi and the Church of Santi Michele e Gaetano, from which comes the faint metallic clinking of coins piling up.
Francis lifts his face to the sky. “The Gnosis that knows not the joy of the body is not wisdom — it’s melancholy in disguise. I never despised the flesh. I called it sister, even when it trembled.”
“And yet,” adds Lou, “each age must rediscover its sacred madness. Reason kills gods faster than sin.”
Florence sleeps. I hear the faint sound of unknown footsteps on the street, like an ancient breath.
Francis looks at me. “Write it, sister. Not to convince — to remember. Every age has its theologians, but few have the courage to laugh with God.”
We keep walking, until we reach Piazza San Lorenzo, beneath the statue of Giovanni delle Bande Nere.
The stone is warm with wine and moisture, and the night vibrates with a music that seems to rise from underground — a distant drum, an ancient heartbeat, a calling.
Sitting on the steps, with a guitar in her arms and that unmistakable voice that scratches like sea wind, Rosa Balistreri, the Voice of Palermo’s suq, sings.
Her figure is translucent, yet alive: hair gathered under a white scarf, eyes full of that indomitable melancholy that belongs only to the South.
Around her, the square is empty, but her words fill the air:
«Cu ti lu dissi / ca t’haju a lassari / megliu la morti / e no chistu duluri…»
Each syllable falls like a prayer — rough and perfect.
Behind her voice, a rhythm of smuggling rises and mingles with the city’s breath.
Invisible drums pulse from the pavement, from the walls, from the heart.
It is a taranta that heals — not by soothing emotion, but by awakening it.
Rosa looks up at us.
“U nordu, u suddu… so’ solo parole,[North, South.. they are just words]” she says, still plucking the strings. “But the heart, when it beats, knows no borders. It is both the guilt and the grace of every soul.”
Francis smiles, almost shyly. “My sister, your song is a liturgy without an altar.”
“And your madness,” she replies sharply, “is the only church I recognize.”
Lou watches her with a gaze that borders on devotion.
“See, Margherita,” she says to me, “this is the sound Europe forgot: the wisdom of the gut. Any rhythm that doesn’t pass through the belly is sterile.”
Rosa begins a new song, this time with a Neapolitan rhythm:
It seems as if the very stones of Florence are trembling, as if the city suddenly remembers it was built on bodies — on bones, on blood, on the flesh that dances not to die.
The song expands, becomes wind, becomes sea.
I see the silhouettes of flamenco devils and the witches of Benevento spinning around us, drawing us into a circle that is neither hell nor paradise, but something more earthly — and more sacred.
Lou takes my hand. “Listen. This is the gnosis of the earth — the one that doesn’t save the soul, but returns it to the body.”
Beside us, Francis closes his eyes and whispers: “Love is not a truth; it’s a contagion.”
Rosa’s song slows, then fades to a whisper.
She lays the guitar on her knees and looks at me.
“You must go south, figghia mia. Every theologian has a desert to cross. And yours lies to the South.”
Lou nods. “To the South, yes — where the flesh does not ask forgiveness.”
Francis steps forward, gently touching my shoulder.
“But first, sister, go to Siena. To the Basilica of San Domenico. Bring your heart to the one who spoke with God as with a lover: Catherine. She still needs a companion unafraid to burn.”
Rosa laughs softly — a laugh that tastes of wine and fire.
“And then come down, whenever you want. I’ll teach you to sing without a voice.”
Silence descends once more over the square.
Lou kisses my forehead. “Go — and don’t be afraid to mix languages. God understands only the wrong sentences.”
Francis fades into the shadows, leaving behind the scent of hay and light.
Rosa lingers a moment longer, then her guitar fades into one last ‘none none none’ that hangs in the air like an irregular blessing.
The sound dies, but not the vibration.
I remain alone on the steps, and in the silence I still feel that hidden rhythm under my skin, like a distant heartbeat.
Perhaps it wasn’t a song after all, but a call.
Something glimmers beside me — a coin, perhaps, or only a reflection — and disappears.
Then I understand: every kind of knowledge is a trick, not to deceive, but to create wonder.
And in the quiet that follows, a voice — not mine — whispers: begin again.
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