The myth of the unicorn has ancient origins, but only dates back to the Indikas of the Greek Ctesias in the 3rd century. to. C. that the description of him is, so to speak, "officialised". At the beginning of the Christian era the Unicorn was taken by the Fathers of the Church and the Doctors, Tertullian, Justin and Augustine, as a symbol of Christ in the exegesis of some Psalms (21, 29 and 91); the Christian interpretation of the myth of the Unicorn was taken up again in the Topographia christiana by Cosmas Indicopleuste, written between 535 and 537. The Unicorn takes on a dual value in Christianity, as a symbol of Christ but also of evil, as we read in the Legend of Barlaam. But more important, as far as we are concerned here, is the work of an unknown author, the Physiologus , written between the 2nd and 4th centuries, in which we find for the first time the mention of what will later be known as the myth of Lady and the Unicorn. The fable of the Lady and the Unicorn became a recurring theme in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, but despite the possible symbolic value this theme rarely had a place in Hermeticism and Alchemy. ...the historical and symbolic development of the myth of the Unicorn from the Sumerians to the 16th century is illustrated here with a gallery of images, through which the numerous and different aspects of it are exposed. - [Author]

Language: Italian