The Rose has been contemplated, throughout all times,
as Queen of Flowers, Perfume of Gods, ornament of the
Graces, delicacy of Cytherea. 
Symbol of youth, grace and virtue, poets named her
Daughter of Heaven, Natural gift of Earth, Glory of Spring,
Queen of Flowers.

Absolute emblem of Woman and Eternal Feminine,
it refers at once to pity and charity,
to love and pain, to modesty and regeneration,
to death and rebirth.

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live. […]
                                                         Shakespeare’s Sonnets LIV

Many legends tell that at the beginning there were only
white roses, which were born from the marine foam
along with Aphrodite.
The rose-shaped spiral of the blessed souls was white
as described by Dante in Paradise, the same as the roses
in the Virgin’s hair in the painting “Our Lady of the Rosary”
by Durer, in “The Beauty and The Beast”, and in “The Nightgale and the Rose”.

It was Venus that gave it that vermillion colour when she saved her love Adonis and got stung by a spine!
The roses that Lucius in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses had to eat
as a donkey in order to turn back to a Human were also red.
But according to another legend red roses resulted from a drop
of Christ’s blood that fell on a white rose blossom at the foot
of the Cross, and then became the symbol of the Heart of God’s son, Sacred Heart, and Cup filled with his blood, Holy Graal.

What a marvellous enigma remains the rose!

In Antiquity, all peoples cultivated roses:
from Syria to ancient Egypt, from Greece to the Roman Empire,
where Paestum cultivations were particularly famous.
Since in Rome it was considered the symbol of sensuality,
a rose was pinned on the chest of each prostitute
to tell them from Roman casts.
But the same roses were largely used during religious ceremonies and in banquets; they were also used to fasten around the statues of heroes and the heads of youngsters dancing at Imeneo’s feasts.
And also the great Hebrew priests during sacrifices crowned
their heads with roses.
The Bible celebrated the rose of Jericho, but the Catholic Church banned the use of roses for long, until they could transform
its meaning from pagan to Mystic, defining Maria herself a “Mystic Rose.”