Description: A fascinating voyage into the secret symbolism of art and science from one of the most contradictory periods in the history of Rome. We will visit the sites in which Dan Brown's fictional character, Professor Robert Langdon, expert of religious symbology, sought answers to a strange mystery. Finding himself in front of the lifeless body of the scientist Vetra, hideously branded with the symbol of the Illuminati, Langdon had no choice but to follow the Path of Illuminati, in order to foil terrifying destruction.

Precisely at the moment when the cardinals were meeting together in the Sistine Chapel to elect the new pope, in the progression of the homicides of four of the cardinals favored to be elected, Robert Langdon, in a race against time succeeds in deciphering the esoteric language of the secret sect of the Illuminati.

From the Chigi Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo to the sculpture of the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, from the Pantheon to the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, from St. Peter's Square to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, we will accompany you in the discovery of the sites mentioned in the book as well as others that are equally surprising, discerning from time to time the fictional aspects of the book from those which are real and historically documented. 

Of course the direct experience of extraordinary works of art by Bernini, Caravaggio e Borromini will be enriched by vivacious presentations on the controversial lives of the popes and artists who commissioned and created them, on the historical periods that brought them to light, and on the horrors of the tribunals of the Inquisition from that era.

The interest of our guided visit also will be to attend to some of the questions raised by the book, as for example the embitterment of the conflicts between faith and science, which from the second half of the 16th century under the directives of the Counterreformation, often reached dramatic outcomes. It was in fact during this period that a series of writers and philosophers developed experimental and mathematical ideas and approaches to reality as it was understood by Renaissance culture. This new method set down the foundation of the modern scientific theories on which our technological society is based. But against them and against anyone who professed unwelcome beliefs considered dangerous, the church ferociously fought in order to preserve an absolute spiritual and temporal dominion over the society. And so it was in 1559 that the first index of prohibited books was compiled, followed by their burning in public squares and often by the execution of their authors.

An emblematic case is that of Galileo Galilei, who was safe while he studied the motion of the pendulum and the laws of falling bodies, but as soon as he began to interest himself in the stars (having perfected the telescope invented by the Dutch, allowing his version to reach thirty magnifications), he was already in danger. The sun spots, the mountains on the moon, *and above all the assertion of the centrality of the sun and the rotation of the earth around it - the great discoveries that make him today the father of modern science - went against the aristotelian theories of the church and Galileo found himself immediately in trouble. That notwithstanding, he succeeded in obtaining permission from Pope Urban VIII Barberini to lay out his famous "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems." When the book was published in 1632, however, the clergy were furious and he was put on trial the following year, condemned, and thanks only to the retraction of his theories, his death sentence was converted to house arrest for life.

Galileo died in 1642 after having spent his last years in solitude and complete blindness. He is buried in the church of Santa Croce in Florence but by decree of the Inquisition his tomb remained without name and memory for over a century.

The dispute between the church and science, though carried out in different tones, has never ended.

For love of the critical spirit that Galileo invites us to share, we want finally to highlight that at the moment Dan Brown does not offer any tour of his book in Rome, therefore there is no such thing as an Angels and Demons tour that is more or less official than any of the others.