THE ORDERS OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE

http://www.argonauts-book.com/orders-of-the-golden-fleece.html

There have been a large number of organizations, elite and popular, which have passed under the title the Order of the Golden Fleece and have taken Jason as their inspiration. Four of these are European orders of knighthood (Burgundian, Spanish, Austrian, and an abortive Napoleonic), all claiming to be the same organization; and one is an English fraternal brotherhood. (Others include a Georgian order and an American fraternity.) First, this page will discuss the orders of knighthood, and then it will review the English fraternity.

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JASON AND ALCHEMY – 17th Century

http://www.argonauts-book.com/jason-and-alchemy.html

Jason's adventures in Colchis in search of the Fleece were early on equated to the practice of alchemy, with the Golden Fleece standing in for the golden reward of a successful alchemical experiment. In 1894 in the Journal of American Folklore Henry Carrington Bolton (1843-1903), a chemist and historian of chemistry, discussed the alchemical symbolism of the Porta Alchemica (or Porta Magica) in Rome, a door built in 1678 or 1680 for the villa of Massimiliano Palombara, a Roman nobleman with a deep interest in alchemy. Here, the author describes the Argonautic symbolism on the door with an extensive quotation from Johann Rudolf Glauber (1604-1674), a German alchemist and chemist:

Picture

Porta Alchemica, Rome.

On the door jamb, beneath the Hebrew words, is the inscription

(C.) Horti magici ingressum Hespcrius custodit draco et sine Alcide Colchicas delicias non guslasset Jason.

"A dragon guards the entrance to the magic garden of Hesperius; and without the aid of Alcides [Hercules] Jason would not have tasted the delights of Colchis."