The Florilegium: From the Camellia to the Colour of Knowledge

Culture, focus on the territory of Brescia, place for meeting and exchange of knowledge, especially for younger academics. These are the objectives of the “The Florilegium Cultural Association”, born in Brescia a little over a year ago thanks to the efforts of four young enthusiasts, decided to bring out of the university lecture rooms the culture of every period, so that everyone can enjoy it.

There are four dominant fields: music, literature and history of art, history and anthropology, history and natural sciences. The thirty members of The Florilegium start from a shared duty: to spread the culture, to disseminate the knowledge which has made and makes Italy great.

The logo of the association is a camellia, the symbol of the famous novel by Dumas embodying the depth of knowledge that overcomes the continental borders. The chosen colour is red purple that recalls the past returned alive thanks to the passionate love for knowledge that lights up the founders of the Association. It is the red of blood, of life that flows in the veins, lymph and nourishment for man as much as the profound knowledge, ancestrally rooted in the human being.

Green is the colour of the true knowledge, combination of yellow and cyan, that is the expansion of the god into rational linked to memory. In the true knowledge humanity is one single being; we perceive how the Knowledge is deeply rooted in our soul without colour, but that includes all of them by reading a distant myth associated with the birth of the camellia.
Susanowo, the god of wind, rain and hurricane, determined to liberate men from the siege of a terrible eight-headed dragon-snake that every year demanded the sacrifi ce of a young girl, moulded a divine sword in the forge of gods and used it to shoot the dragon. Susanowo then proposed to the princess who would be sacrifi ced without his intervention, and bowing down before her he put his bloody sword to the ground. Magically the green stems of grass, wet with the blood of the dragon, turned into a shrub with glossy foliage and white flowers mottled in purple, unable to lose petals and that fall entire from the plant: Camellia, also called “rose of Japan”, was born.
In Greek mythology, the rose turns from white to red because of the drops of blood lost by Venus while she was running towards the dying Adonis, assuming the meaning of eternal love, whereas the victory of rationality over bestiality is transposed into the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. The purity of white doesn’t get dirty but rather it takes on, even here, the value of passion as love for life and yearning for the infi nite, characterizing every man as such, united by the same passion and desire for the Eternal beyond all barriers.

 Elisabetta Ballarin

ASSOCIAZIONE CULTURALE IL FLORILEGIO
Fondata da quattro giovani ricercatori: Letizia Barozzi, Fabrizio Pagnoni, Filippo Piazza ed Enrico Valseriati.

Website: www.ilflorilegio.altervista.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AssociazioneCulturaleIlFlorilegio
E-mail: ilflorilegio@gmail.com
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