Fraternitasodrodraconis

THE SYMBOL OF THE INVERTED DRAGON

The Ouroboros or Ouroboros is a very ancient symbol, present in many peoples and in different epochs, seemingly immobile but in eternal movement, it represents the power that devours and regenerates itself, the universal energy that is continuously consumed and renewed, the cyclical nature of things that begin again from the beginning after having reached their own end. It thus symbolises unity, the totality of the world, infinity, cyclical time, eternal return, immortality and perfection.

It is represented by a serpent or dragon biting and swallowing its own tail. It has been adopted as a symbol in Gnosticism and Hermeticism, and in alchemy in particular, associated with everything that can be represented through a cycle that, having reached its own end, begins again from the beginning once more, ad infinitum. This widespread image represents the circle in its personification of the eternal return. It indicates that each end corresponds to a new beginning, in a constant repetition. 

The founding act of the Order of the Dragon reads: “as a sign or effigy we choose and accept that of the dragon curved in the shape of a circle, turning on itself, with its tail twisted around its neck, divided in the back in two parts, from the top of the head and from the nose to the end of the tail, by a stream of blood issuing from the deep cleft of a white and bloodless wound, and on the front publicly bearing a red cross, in the same manner as those who, militating under the banner of the glorious martyr George, use to wear a red cross on a white field”.

The Dragon represents the ‘guardian of the threshold’, guardian of the initiatory spiritual treasure that the neophyte must face and overcome in order to fulfil his initiatory path. There are many conjectures and many hypotheses yet to be verified, but the fact remains that only a very few examples of this symbol can be admired in Europe.

Photo of the overturned Dragon, found at the Baratta Palace in Castrovillari (Cs)