The living story of Bel Poggiolo
The Legend of Lazarus, Faroaldo, 720 AD. is one of the great, secret legends of Europe, which is still being lived out on the hills of Umbria and can be witnessed from Bel Poggiolo, likely haunt of young Faroaldo. This legend exists in historical fragments and is reflected today also at the abbey of San Pietro in Valle, and also in human actions and words. This mosaic has been assembled by Bernard Anson Silj to reveal an ancient-modern miracle of vision, devotion and trusty companionship, involving peoples as distant as the Baltic and Antioch.
The book is available to guests of Bel Poggiolo as a Bedside Storygardenz Book and can also be experienced looking east from the veranda, across the field to the ruin - Poggiolaccio - Faroaldo's look-out on Spoleto and the Solemn Mount. After reading the book, you can complete your experience by walking Faroaldo's trail over the mountains into the Black Valley (Valnerina) (see below). The bedside book also contains an exploration of Umbria, guided also by a hypothetical voice of those who were unable to write their history: the vanquished and the disposessed. All the work is researched and written by Bernard Anson Silj.
The Legend of Lazarus, Faroaldo and the Anima Mundi. After the fall of the Roman Empire, in 520 AD, the Lango Barts (long beards), a fierce barbarian people from Germany, invade Italy and establish a mosaic of trucculent dukedoms in Pavia, Benevento and Spoleto. But in Spoleto, Faroaldo, a genetically modified barbarian, begins to have some dreams, and begins to speak to little birds, and generally behaves in a manner improper for a barbarian. He is deposed, and like an early-day St. Francis, walks naked into the Sacred Mountain, singing a song. He finds the source of his dream, Lazarus, pillar saint from Syria, and coexists with him in a cave for many years. Then he leads him down, to the the Black valley to light the flame of the Soul of the World, (the Anima Mundi) which becomes one of the guiding light of the Dark Ages. One thousand three hundred years later, in one of the most extraordinary places (even for Italy !) the flame is still burning .... only just.... it is burning...only just .....
Walking Faroaldo's trail: from the ruined fortress (Faroaldo's youthful retreat), at Bel Poggiolo land, to the town of Spoleto (Faroaldo's Lango Bart dukedom), to the Sacred Mountain (with the Jupiter stone and the hermits' caves), over the Solemn Mount to the Black Valley (Valnerina) on the other side, to the Abbey of San Pietro in Valle, where you find .... a corner of the Holy Land.... the Lango Bart mausoleum.... remains of a Roman temple.... the earliest cycle of humanistic painting 150 years before Cimabue and Giotto..... and.... the 1300 light.
The walk takes between 5 - 10 hours, depending on your point of departure.
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EXTRACT FROM The Legend of Lazarus and Faroaldo
What a distance these men have travelled in order to be here: Faroaldo - Long Beard - from Scoringia and Mauringia on the Baltic, via Pannonia; Lazarus - Pillar Saint - from Aleppo in Syria, via Thessaly. And what a bizarre language they share, a proto-macaronic, a palaeo-Esperanto, all veined with Norse-German-Mongol or Greek-Aramaic, and seasoned with Umbro-Latin.
Yet thanks to a certain affinity of spirit – and in spite of most evident differences - their mish-mash works well. In any case, there’s not so much to say. For years, Lazarus has become used to observing a rule of silence. Now fleshy Faroaldo tries to emulate scrawny Lazarus. He tries to settle down. He bites his lip when he gets an itch.
Whole days and weeks elapse between two words. Sometimes they stir; sometimes they share a one-liner.
A quip in July brings a retort in September.
In the sixth month of their fellowship, Lazarus shares his story....
In the tenth month of their fellowship, Faroaldo returns the favour....
"No, it's frankly moeglich hier" ........ the air effervescent, on the Solemn Mount, of the Dark Ages, manifesting in the spiritual eye.....
The air was effervescent on the Solemn Mount and manifested in the spiritual eye ....
