Milo Rambaldi

Rambaldi redirects here; see also Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola, the 14th-century Dante scholar

Milo Giacomo Rambaldi is a fictional person from the American television series Alias. The work of Rambaldi, often centuries ahead of its time and tied to prophecy, plays a central role in the show.

According to Alias creator J.J. Abrams, in a feature on Rambaldi included on the season 5 DVD box set, the Mueller device and Milo Rambaldi were originally intended simply to be MacGuffins.

Rambaldi's technological developments are sought after by numerous governments and rogue organizations in the series. Arvin Sloane is generally obsessed with obtaining Rambaldi's work and unlocking its secrets.

There seems to be no limit to Rambaldi's genius as he was highly capable in automatism, life extension, protein engineering, mathematics, cryptography and cartography. Rambaldi is said to have predicted the digital Information Age. He invented a machine code language around 1489, cryptographic algorithms, and sketched the designs of a portable vocal communicator and a prototype that reflected the properties of a transistor.

The character draws its inspiration from real-life historical figures including Leonardo da Vinci and Nostradamus. Rambaldi's artistic-looking manuscripts, written in code, are a direct reference to Leonardo's method of recording his work. Behind the scenes, the writers of Alias often referred to Rambaldi jokingly as "Nostravinci".

The character is named after Carlo Rambaldi, the creator and operator of many special creatures for science fiction movies. Rambaldi won the 1983 Best Effects-Visual Effects Oscar for his work on the E.T. movie creature.

The Rambaldi subplot, which dominated the first two seasons of the series and was greatly explored in the second half of the third season, was virtually nonexistent in the early episodes of season four. However it continued to lurk in the background of the series and, as creator J.J. Abrams promised, resurfaced in full later in the season. Rambaldi and his works continued to figure heavily through the end of the series.

Fictional biography

Rambaldi (1444–1496), a renaissantial homo universalis, artist, alchemist, engineer and mystic, served as chief architect to Pope Alexander VI.

According to the Alias fiction, Rambaldi was born in Parma, and educated by Vespertine monks and worked as a student of the arts until he was 12. In his 18th year and during his travels to Rome he was introduced to Cardinal Rodericus and was retained privately as an architect, consultant and prophet, when Rodericus of Borgia (Borja) became Pope in 1492.

His writings and plans are written in multiple languages ranging from Italian and Demotic hybrids, to elusive mixtures of symbols (pre-masonic cipher encryptions). Rambaldi also created the earliest known watermark which he used on all of his documents: a naked eye, visible only when held to black light, known as the eye of Rambaldi, which helped tell original works apart from forgeries many years later. His waterpapers were all hand-made from a unique polymer fiber.

Despite Borgia's benevolence, Rambaldi and his works never became famous due to the Archdeacon Claudio Vespertini, who feared the revolutionary implications of the technologies defined in Rambaldi's belief system: Rambaldi believed that science would someday allow us to know God. Vespertini attempted to pursue and destroy everything he could find and keep the name of Rambaldi 'invisible.'

When Alexander VI died in 1503, Vespertini ordered that the name Rambaldi be erased from all inscriptions between 1470 and 1496, his workshop in Rome destroyed, Rambaldi himself excommunicated for heresy and sentenced to death by flame. However Rambaldi died in the winter of 1496, a lonely man without a known surviving heir.

Not long after his death, a second workshop was discovered in San Lazzaro, but was also destroyed by the Vatican. Plans and sketches were sold and traded as if without value during a private auction. These plans however have since been located, starting in the 15th century and continuing even to recent years, around Italy, France, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Plans were also found in private collections or museum warehouses. During the Third Reich, documents interpreting his designs and teachings were highly sought-after. It was then when the nickname Nostravinci arose among auctioneering circles. The design directive for many of these drawings remains unclear to this day, and has inspired some impressive forgeries, even prime examples of digital piracy. However the eye of Rambaldi was proven to be the only test of accuracy against them.

Known Rambaldi artifacts

• Mueller device - Designed by Rambaldi, built by Oskar Mueller. Known effects include increasing the aggression of certain bees and emitting a sub-sonic frequency which combined with chemical contaminants causes heightened aggression in humans. Five Mueller devices are known to have been built. One small-scale device was seized by Sydney and handed over to Sloane. Its status is unknown as the CIA found no Rambaldi artifacts when it raided SD-6. One large-scale device was destroyed by Sydney in Taipei. "Arvin Clone" had one completed small-scale device, the status of which is unknown, and one large-scale device located in his Santiago compound, which was seized and/or destroyed by APO. There were also incomplete components of at least one more device in the compound, also presumably seized and/or destroyed by APO. Finally, Elena Derevko constructed an enormous Mueller device in Sovogda, Russia, which was destroyed by Sydney.
• Notebook - Recovered from San Lazzaro. Not seen on-screen; an analysis by SD-6 indicates that the notebook contains rudimentary schematics for a cellular phone.
• Sketches - Two sketches, each of which contains half of a binary code. The second sketch is destroyed by acid in Berlin. When the codes are combined with a compression scheme, they reveal the location of the Sol D'Oro.
• Sol D'Oro (Golden Sun) - A yellow disk, appearing to be stained glass but actually a synthetic polymer.
• Clock - Commissioned and designed by Rambaldi, built by Giovanni Donato (the only man Rambaldi ever collaborated with). When combined with the Golden Sun disk, the clock reveals a star chart identifying the location of Rambaldi's journal.
• Rambaldi's journal - Contains instructions on how to fit together Rambaldi's designs. Page 47 was written in invisible ink and contains a prophecy and a drawing identifying Sydney as the "Chosen One". Page 94 included a listing of "apocalyptic dates and times".
• Ampule - Filled with a "Rambaldi liquid" used to make the text of Page 47 and the Circumference visible.
• Code key - Inscribed on the frame of a portrait of Pope Alexander VI painted by Rambaldi, housed in The Vatican. Used to decode the prophecy on page 47.
• The Circumference - A page of text describing the construction and application of the Mueller device. Like Page 47, it was written in invisible ink. It is obtained from the CIA for Irina Derevko in exchange for Will Tippin. It is next seen in the possession of "Arvin Clone".
• Music box - Played a sequence that when each note was translated to its corresponding frequency, revealed an equation for zero-point energy. Destroyed by Sydney after recording the equation to prevent it from falling into the hands of SD-6.
• Flower - Found in an egg-shaped container, it was apparently 400–600 years old, Rambaldi's proof of eternal life.
• Firebomb - A neutron bomb designed by Rambaldi, it delivered micropulses that disintegrated organic matter but left inorganic matter unharmed.
• Cut-out manuscript page - A manuscript page with a section cut out of the center. Sloane recovers the missing piece from inside a 15th century statue of an arhat.
• Study of the Human Heart - Recovered by Jack and Irina. The CIA intended to use this manuscript and Irina to flush Sloane out, but Irina double-crossed Jack, stole the manuscript and turned it over to Sloane in exchange for extracting her from CIA custody. Included the DNA "fingerprint" of Proteo di Regno, which also served as a code key for page 94 of the Rambaldi journal.
• Di Regno heart - Found inside Proteo di Regno's body, it was apparently keeping him alive. Used to power Il Dire.
• Pages - loose pages seen in the possession of the man in Nepal who gives Sloane The Restoration.
• Il Dire (The Telling) - A machine made of 47 Rambaldi artifacts, it wrote the word eirene ("peace" in Greek) along with the DNA sequence of The Passenger.
• Medication - derived from a formula found in Rambaldi's journal and used on Allison Doren. It helped her heal from the extensive wounds she received at Sydney's hands and may have imparted lasting rapid regenerative abilities. Not seen on-screen.
• Keys - A dozen keys collected by Andrian Lazarey (although one may have been collected by Sydney in the animated episode included on the season 3 DVD set). Used to open the vault which housed the Cube holding Rambaldi's DNA.
• Cube - Housed a live sample of Rambaldi's DNA. Collected by Sydney and Lazarey, later concealed by Sydney herself which prompted her to erase her memory in the first place. The Cube would eventually be retrieved by Sydney for the CIA and would later be stolen by The Covenant, who planned to fuse the DNA with Sydney's eggs to engineer Rambaldi's second coming. Destroyed by Sydney.
• Kaleidoscope - This artifact required three discs. Once the discs were inserted into the kaleidoscope, they formed a map of an underwater formation in the Sea of Japan, where four additional discs were found.
• Discs - four discs recovered from the Sea of Japan that were required to open the "Irina" box.
• "Irina" box - A box with the name Irina inscribed on it. It was rumored to contain "the Passenger", which the CIA believed to be a bioweapon. Supposedly it had not been opened since Rambaldi's time but apparently Sloane had found it open, because he hid the di Regno heart inside it.
• The Restoration - A manuscript which references "The Passenger" and the Hourglass. Contains the formula for "Rambaldi fluid".
• Code key - Used to decode The Restoration. Not seen on-screen. Lauren Reed stole a false code key created by the CIA.
• Hourglass - Contained a fluid that powered the battery for the EEG machine.
• EEG machine - A device that reveals the identity of "The Passenger" by sketching her brainwaves.
• The Passenger - First believed to be a bioweapon, in actuality a living being with a "direct conduit" to Milo Rambaldi and the only one to know the exact location of the Sphere of Life. The Passenger is Nadia Santos, daughter of Arvin Sloane and Irina Derevko and half-sister of Sydney Bristow.
• "Rambaldi fluid" - A chemical containing "protein strains" which, when injected into Nadia Santos (The Passenger), made her a "direct conduit to Rambaldi." This allowed her to experience visions and through muscle memory transcribe a complex algebraic equation for a longitude and latitude, the location of the Sphere of Life.
• Sphere of Life - A vessel which supposedly housed Rambaldi's consciousness. When "the Passenger" came into contact with it, she saw terrifying flashes of the future.
• The Vespertine Papers - Texts, rumored to have been destroyed during World War II, which refer to properties of the Rambaldi orchid. Not seen on-screen. Pages obtained from the Department of Special Research (which may or may not have been genuine Rambaldi pages) were placed in auction as The Vespertine Papers to flush out "Arvin Clone".
• Orchid - Paphiopedilum khan, a rare lady slipper orchid brought to Italy from China in 1269. Recovered by "Arvin Clone" from the Monte Inferno monastery, it is the source of a chemical contaminant that (when combined with other substances seeded in various water supplies by Sloane) encourages human qualities like empathy and harmonic coexistence; in conjunction with the Mueller device, it causes heightened aggression in humans.
• Vade Mecum - A Rambaldi manuscript, translated by Lazlo Drake. Described by Sloane as "a template describing how Rambaldi's creations were to be assembled in order to bring forth his final prophecy". Not shown on-screen.
• Il Diluvio (The Flood) - A manuscript that described Rambaldi's vision of a moment when the world would be cleansed and everything would begin anew. Not seen on-screen; Irina states that she destroyed it.
• The Profeta Cinque (Fifth Prophet) - A manuscript written in apparently unbreakable code that speaks of advanced genetics.
• Horizon - A small orb which, when placed on a stone altar in Rambaldi's tomb, forms a levitating sphere which generates a red fluid which has the power to convey immortality.
• Amulet - Recovered from "The Rose", it apparently contains a map to Rambaldi's tomb, which is revealed by sunlight shining through it while in a cavern on Mt. Subasio.
• Rambaldi's Tomb - Contains what appears to be the coffin of Rambaldi and a stone altar, which works in conjunction with "The Horizon".

Symbol

The symbol, <o>, generally referred to as the "eye of Rambaldi," is the symbol of The Magnific Order of Rambaldi. In the episode Time Will Tell, a direct descendant of Giovanni Donato (who may in fact have been Donato himself) describes the Order as "Rambaldi's most trusted followers, entrusted with safeguarding his creations. Sadly, like most things that once were pure, criminals now use this symbol to infiltrate the Order." Some followers of Rambaldi have the mark tattooed on their hands, including Anna Espinosa.

The glyph is also said by Irina Derevko to represent the struggle between "The Chosen One" and "The Passenger," whom Irina believes to be her two daughters. (See Rambaldi's prophecies below) The circle in the center of the design is said to be the object around which they will do great battle.

The Rambaldi Eye (<o>) appears in one frame of the Alias title sequence (seasons 1-3) after all the letters in the word Alias appear. In season one and three, it flashes as ALIAS is spelled out and Victor Garber's credit appears. In season two, it appears on ALIAS when "With Lena Olin" appears. Season four doesn't have a Rambaldi sign, but it appears in season five when Balthazar Getty appears.

Rambaldi's prophecies

One of Rambaldi's prophecies is central to the Alias story arc. Written on the forty-seventh page of one of his manuscripts, it reads:

This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks, signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works: bind them with fury, a burning anger. Unless prevented, at vulgar cost, this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation. This woman, without pretense, will have had her effect, never having seen the beauty of my sky behind Mt. Subasio. Perhaps a single glance would have quelled her fire.

The identity of this woman has been speculated to be Sydney Bristow, as included with the prophecy is a drawing of Sydney's likeness, which also resembles her mother. Rambaldi also mentioned three physical anomalies in the prophecy which Sydney also has. Sydney Bristow tried to disprove that the prophecy refers to herself by climbing Mt. Subasio.

At the finale of Season Two, Sydney's mother, Irina Derevko, reveals that Sydney is actually the woman referred by Rambaldi and not Irina as Sydney wanted to believe.

During Season Three, an organization known as The Covenant tried to use a Rambaldi artifact known as "The Cube", which contained a live sample of Rambaldi's DNA to fulfill the first part of the prophecy. This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks, signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works: bind them with fury, a burning anger. The Covenant planned to fuse Rambaldi's DNA with Sydney's eggs to engineer Rambaldi's second coming. This was however prevented by Sydney who destroyed the lab where the process had been made.

When the FBI Assistant Director Kendall reveals to Sydney her lost two years, he mentions that she's a celebrity among the Department of Special Research as she was the one to collect the most part of Rambaldi's works which could also be what the first part of the prophecy meant.

During Season Four, another prophecy was revealed, this prophecy was told to Michael Vaughn but never stated specifically, says that the "Chosen One", the woman referred to in the Page 47, and "the Passenger", Sydney's half-sister Nadia Santos, would fight and kill each other in battle. Irina Derevko recites a similar prophecy at the finale of season 4 that Rambaldi wrote:

When blood-red horses wander the streets and angels fall from the sky, the Chosen One and the Passenger will clash . . . and only one will survive.

Both prophecies come to pass at the end of Season Four, when Elena Derevko's scheme to destroy civilization using the contaminated water in conjunction with a giant Mueller device. The team spotted a horse that under the light of the Mueller device appeared blood red (which prompted Irina to recite the prophecy); Nadia passed a statue of an angel which had fallen from a building right before she was captured. When Sydney tried stop her aunt's endgame by destroying the Mueller device she is stopped by her half-sister which was infected by the contaminated water and transformed into a killing machine.

As predicted by Rambaldi "The Chosen One" and "the Passenger" clashed around the Mueller device and Sydney would have been killed if not for Arvin Sloane intervention who was forced to shoot Nadia when she began strangling Sydney. Sydney then destroyed the Mueller device rendering the greatest power unto utter desolation.

In Season Five, its revealed that page 47 holds a secret message that is briefly shown when Nadia tries to burn the page to prevent her father from finding it which results in Nadia's death. Arvin Sloane eventually translates the message which reads:

The circle will be complete when the Chosen One finds The Rose in San Chielo.

Prophet Five, using its government contacts, was able to secure Anna Espinosa release and later were able to genetically transformed Espinosa into Sydney's double after the latter's DNA was sampled by Prophet Five. Anna was however killed by Sydney, who subsequently impersonates Anna within Prophet Five.

Sydney is sent to Italy where she is approached by Sark at a betting parlor. Believing Sydney to be Anna, he explains that the former San Chielo monastery is now the La Fossa prison. After faking a robbery, Sark and Sydney surrender to the police and are taken to La Fossa. Sark fakes an illness and is taken to the infirmary, where he fights off the guards and accesses the security system to open the door to Sydney's cell. Sydney finds the basement, where an old man says that he has been waiting for her for a very long time. He quotes the message from page 47 and says that he is The Rose. He gives Sydney an amulet and declares ominously that it's only a matter of time before "the stars will fall from the sky" and "the light ends".

In the final of Season Five, its revealed that Sydney had misinterpreted the meaning of the prophecy, when she climbed Mt. Subasio, as the prophecy states "the beauty of my sky". Arvin Sloan shoots the ice under Sydney to prevent her, and therefore the audience of seeing a specific pattern on the wall inside Mt Subasio when the rising sunlight seeps into the cavern and filters through the amulet that Sydney recovered from the Rose.

Rambaldi's Endgame

As revealed in the final three episodes of season four, the first part of Rambaldi's endgame was the Mueller Device (which could be used to change human nature to hatred or peace on desire of the possessor, whenever wanted). The second part of the endgame was The Horizon (immortality), as was revealed in the end of season five. Together, they would result in the possessor living forever and, with the help of the Mueller Device, changing the world the way they see fit for all eternity. However, this was averted when all known Mueller Devices were destroyed and Sloane, the only known beneficiary of The Horizon, was trapped in Rambaldi's own tomb by an explosion, left to exist but never be free for all eternity.

External links

• Official Rambaldi/Alias DVD site The Official Alias DVD site with Rambaldi objects