Financial Times FT.com

Company name contains ‘hidden depths’

By Adrian Michaels in Milan

Published: November 5 2007 20:18 | Last updated: November 5 2007 20:18

It cannot be easy coming up with names for businesses. Just think of all those cod Latin or Greek tags applied a few years ago to merging pharmaceutical companies.

Matteo Arpe has chosen real Latin – sator means sower or planter – which is also wrapped up with mysticism. The word is the start of the famous palindromic Sator Square, which first appeared more than 2,000 years ago and is supposed to contain hidden messages. Because the square’s letters can almost be rearranged to spell paternoster (our father) twice but with some extra letters that do not fit and one that needs to be used more than once, it is sometimes thought to hold hidden Christian meaning.

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