It is a small constellation in the austral hemisphere (therefore little visible from us) and it
has been invented from Bayer in 1603, in memory of the mythical immortal bird. Ovidio, in the
Metamorphoses, narrates us of the fenice, bird that reached to the age of 500 years, last term
of its life, placed its limbs in an incense nest and cinnamon constructed in top to a palm, and
died. From its body born then an other fenice that, become adult, transported the nest in the
temple of Iperione, the Titano father of the God Sun. For the Egizi it was be a matter of the
bird Bennu, symbol of immortality and resurrection, let alone of cyclical renewal. The Fisiologo,
the first Christian animal atlas, tells: "In India exist a bird said fenice: every five hundred
years it goes towards the trees of the Lebanese, and fills up its wings of aromas, and one
announces with a sign the clergyman of Eliopoli, in the new month, Nisan or Adar, that is in the
month of Famenòth or Farmuthì. The clergyman, perceived, fills up the altar of twigs of screw:
the bird enters then in Eliopoli, full of aromas, and get on the altar, and the fire is ignited
from itself and it is consumed. The next day the clergyman seeking in the altar discovers in the
ash a worm: the second day he finds it become a small bird, and the third day finds it become an
adult bird which greets the clergyman and it goes some in the own dwelling ".