The Alchemical Door is located a few steps from Termini Railway Station: it is the last stone portal of what once was the villa of the Marquis Massimiliano Palombara (1614-1680), passionate about alchemy and member of the Rosicrucians, a secret society founded in the 14th -15th century by the legendary Christian Rosenkreuz, and later settled on the writings of the alchemist John Dee, court magician of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Currently, instead of the villa, there is Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with its gardens. The door, which once was in another location, was built in the second half of the seventeenth century, together with four others now lost. Probably, the year of construction is 1680. On the surface of the same we find engraved alchemical symbols, as the Marquis was fond of hermeticism and esotericism.
According to tradition, the alchemical formula of the transmutation of the vile lead into gold, or perhaps part of it, would be represented on the door. This formula would have been learned by the Marquis following the discovery of some papers belonging to other alchemists; findings which are actually indecipherable cards.

It was for this reason that the Marquis decided to report these signs on the portal of the villa, hoping that someone could decipher them.
The symbols which can be found here are the alchemical one of the sun and gold (on the architrave), the seal of Solomon; the symbols of the planets (on the jambs), with their corresponding metals, and a series of indications in Latin: Saturn-lead, Jupiter-tin, Mars-iron, Venus-copper, Moon-silver, Mercury-mercury.
