We are biological entities designed to walk on the crust of the earth, which emerged from the bottom of the sea; to travel the waterways that connect the interior valleys and coasts; to descend beneath the reefs and cross seas and oceans guided by the stars. It was granted to us to sink toward the depths of the Earth through labyrinths that lie beneath the roots of trees; to pull precious stones and crystals from the walls; to climb to the peaks of the highest mountains until we touch the clouds and see the world from a bird’s-eye view.

Prevented from flying, humans observe with surprise and admiration the birds exercising their authority in the realm of the heavens. We are obsessed by birds; we paint and sculpt them and adorn ourselves with their feathers, bestow wings and the gift of flight on horses, bulls and lions; we imagine angelic winged beings that look human, angels and archangels that never fall, celestial messengers that descend to us from above to whisper certain revelations to the chosen ones.

The verb “to reveal” refers to the action of removing a veil, or of illuminating the darkness with candles to make the invisible visible and the intangible tangible, to make comprehensible that which is in front of us, but which we cannot comprehend because we do not know how to see. However, we know that revelations can be dangerous. Galileo was suspended as a professor of mathematics and placed under house arrest because he revealed to us, in his Sidereus Nuncius (“starry messenger”), what he saw through his telescope: that the moons of Jupiter orbited Jupiter, disobeying the celestial orders handed down by Rome.