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After listening to the speech by Doctor of Pharmacy Aquilino García Perea at the Royal European Academy of Doctors in Barcelona, a group of friends who regularly attend these events planned our next trip. And we decided to go to Berlin. I remembered my last stay in this city and encouraged them to visit it.
Berlin welcomed me with hazy skies and trees dressed in autumnal red. It has always seemed to me to be a beautiful city with strength and deep history.
I remember the visit to Museum Island, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, made up of five prestigious museums that house beautiful archaeological and art collections.
Beautiful tour through the paved roads, the temple of Dionysus, the sanctuary of Athena, the wonderful door, the spectacular hanging theater, the sanctuary of Demeter, the gymnasium, the walls, the doors, the temple of Serapis and as an important city it had its Asclepion, ancient world hospital dedicated to the god of medicine Asclepios or Aesculapius, where sick pilgrims slept one night and told their dreams to a priest. The temple was surrounded by springs. The god of convalescence Telesphorus, son of Aesculapius, and Hygea, where the word hygiene comes from, were also remembered.
The Pergamon Museum houses the impressive altar in honor of Zeus, built more than 2,000 years ago to thank the gods for the blessings received, located in the ancient city of Pergamon, birthplace of Galen, where he was born and practiced medicine. He discovered that blood and not air circulates through the arteries and the valves of the heart. He died in Rome in 216.
Pergamum means "citadel." The city's acropolis was located on a hill 355 meters high. In it there was a magnificent theater considered the most inclined in the world. Inside are the tombs of the kings of Pergamon and the famous altar in honor of Zeus on whose panels there are numerous scenes of the founding of the city.
I continue my journey through Pergamon, through the temple of Athena and its famous library that once contained more than 200,000 volumes and was considered the second in the ancient world after that of Alexandria. The little that is known about this missing library is the contribution of the Roman writer and traveler Pliny the Elder in his work on Natural History.
Bases and canvases on the walls are preserved. Daisies grow where papyrus and parchment were once kept and you can breathe the aura and magic of knowledge and culture. It was built during the times of Eumenes II in the years 197-159 BC. c.
I imagine the reading room with the large statue of the goddess Athena with her Corinthian helmet presiding over the room and which is currently preserved in the museum.
The kings of Pergamon were art collectors and above all bibliophiles with great concern for culture. They were interested in turning their capital Pergamum into a city like Athens in the time of Pericles.
A school of grammatical studies was established there, as had happened in Alexandria, but with a different current. While in Alexandria they specialized in editions of literary texts and grammatical criticism, in Pergamon they were more inclined towards Stoic philosophy. During the reign of Eumenes II, girls were allowed to attend school.
In this library the manuscripts of Aristotle were kept as a great treasure for a hundred years. It was thanks to Cicero's efforts that he proceeded to edit them.
I continue my tour of the museum and discover the incredible reconstruction of the entrance gate to the Roman market of Miletus, destroyed by an earthquake in the Middle Ages and rebuilt; the great gate of Ishtar, built under the orders of Nebuchadnezzar II; the gate of ancient Babylon adorned with blue bricks decorated with animal figures; the imposing façade of the Mshata Palace and the colorful room of Aleppo.
After passing the monumental entrance of the Neues Museum, I was fascinated by the beautiful bust of the beautiful, majestic and legendary Queen Nefertiti, with an elegant swan neck, whose name means "the beautiful one has arrived." They say that she was the first famous tuberculosis patient who went down in history.
On the way to the Brandenburg Gate we stop at Bebelplatz, one of the most beautiful places. Many baroque and neoclassical buildings and palaces are built. It is the place where the Nazis, on May 10, 1933, burned more than 20,000 books considered "undesirable." A monument called Versunkene Bibliothek commemorates the event. It is a square of glass on the floor from which you can see a room surrounded by empty shelves. A sad lesson from history.
I close my eyes and I see and feel the crackling of the flames and the crying and tearing of the dreams enclosed between the pages of the books reduced to ashes, but the soul of the books flies and survives, the shelves are still full of stories and, if I look carefully, the authors and the protagonists dance alone before my eyes, full of amazement dressed in burning flames, asking not to be forgotten.
