Freemasonic Symbolism and Georgian Gardens
Patrizia Granziera
The landscape garden was
conceived in England between 1710 and 1730�that is, during the period of the
European Enlightenment, which coincides with the diffusion of Freemasonry in
England and Europe. Many landlords and intellectuals of the eighteenth century
were freemasons. Among them were famous people like Alexander Pope, Arbuthnot,
Edward Harley, the Earl of Chesterfield, James Addison, Richard Steele,
Jonathan Swift, James Thomson, Lord Burlington, Lord Cobham, William Stuckley,
Lord Montague, Voltaire, Montesquieu. It is in fact at this point in its
history that Freemasonry develops as a focus for intellectuals, politicians,
the gentry, artists and architects, thus fostering a continuous exchange of
ideas, aesthetic values and beliefs between English and European intellectuals.
Freemasons believed in virtue, progress, equality, and they contributed to the
preparation of the soil for the late eighteenth century democratic revolutions.
These Enlightenment ideals (tolerance, equality, universalism, civic duty,
natural religion, morality) which they helped propagate through their
international links were also reflected - by means of its iconography and
design�in the early "emblematic" landscape garden (1).. Once we
understand the important role that Freemasonry had in the eighteenth century
and we consider that those intellectuals who belonged or had links with this
secret society were also responsible for the developments in the arts -
landscape architecture included�we cannot but agree that it is important to
research the relation between Freemasonry and the early English landscape
garden. But we should begin with an introduction on the history of Freemasonry
and its role in the eighteenth century.
***
Freemasonic history
Modern English Freemasonry
came to be publicly known at a meeting of four London lodges on St. John's Day
(June 24) 1717, when it was decided to found a new speculative Freemasonry (2).
It is at this point that Freemasonry became a focus for intellectuals,
politicians, the gentry, artists and architects. Freemasonry, with its mystical
overtones and origins dating back to the Middle Ages, held a fascination for
the cognoscenti. Medieval stonemasons were called "freemasons" since
they were not bound to a guild in any specific city but were forced to wander
from place to place where churches were erected. It was through this that the
movement acquired the character of an international society. The first masonic
manuscripts, the "Old Charges" (3), explain the nature of the connections
of the Craft with myth, Antiquity and a moral system of conduct (4). Two common
elements of these works on Masonic history are the reference to God as �Great
Architect of the Universe� and the definition of the seven liberal arts
(Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Harmony and Geometry)
with a particular stress upon Geometry, which was considered to be the source
of Knowledge, an art which had the potential to re-create the Divine in
building, the lost Temple of Solomon itself (5). According to legend, the
Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was built by Hiram, who knew some architectural
secrets unknown to all others, but was murdered by three apprentices. The
initiation ceremony for the master mason grade commemorates this event (6).
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For freemasons the
Solomonic Temple was an example of divine architecture. Vitruvian ideas and
Classical Architecture derived from this structure, and the three orders
(Corinthian, Doric, Ionic) of the Temple were brought to Greece and the West by
Pythagoras. According to the legend, after the flood Pythagoras found the two
pillars on which the secrets of Geometry were inscribed and he, together with
the great geometer Hermes Trismegistus, told these secrets to the Greeks. These
pillars, among others, were set up by Solomon to build his temple. The
right-hand column was called Joachin and it was associated with establishment
and legality; the left-hand column was called Boaz and symbolized strength (7).
Thus the idea of Geometry, the root of Masonry, as an exclusive and secret art
and science handed down from the deities to an �lite of people, originated from
these legends, which in the eighteenth century became influential in shaping
the characteristic masonic self-conscious mythology embedded in ritual..
However, the Rosicrucian
movement also played an important role in bringing Hermetic and esoteric
Renaissance traditions into Freemasonry. Rosicrucianism was named after
Christian Rosenkreutz, the principal mythical character of two manifestos which
were published in Kassel in 1614-1615, written by an anonymous author. The
"Fama" and the "Confessio" told the story of Rosenkreutz,
an enlightened man who travelled, mainly in the Orient (8). He founded the
�bretheren of the Rosie Crosse� an association of learned men who were charged
to exchange their knowledge, to heal the sick free of charge and to proclaim
that the time was at hand for a great advance in the knowledge of nature (9). This
reformation of the world, however, was not only based on Evangelic Christianity
with its emphasis on brotherly love, but also on Western esoteric traditions.
The link between this
esoteric Hermetic movement and the first system of lodges which emerged in
Scotland around 1600 appears even more evident when we consider that the masons
had long possessed a tradition, enshrined in the Old Charges, that Hermes had
played a major part in preserving the knowledge of the mason's craft and
transmitting it to mankind after the flood and that the key development in
craft history, the teaching of masonry by Euclid, had taken place in Egypt. Rosicrucianism
therefore influenced the early development of Freemasonry, adding to the
already mixed masonic lore ( the myth of Egypt, Solomon's Temple, The Hermetic
quest), the myth of the secret order of invisible brethren, dedicated to the
search of ultimate truths and to the understanding of the mysterious universe
(10).
Moreover, emerging
Freemasonry was also influenced by the Renaissance concept of the architect
(11). In the fifteenth and sixteenth century, the architect came to occupy a
remarkably exalted position in Renaissance thought. The Vitruvian concept of
the architect and the techniques and styles of architecture detailed by
Vitruvius were held not only to be relevant to the education of architects but
to be essential elements in the education of a gentleman. In Vitruvius's main
work The Ten Books of Architecture (first translated into English in the
eighteenth century), the architect is seen as the master of all the arts
central to human knowledge, including the mathematical arts, thus becoming the
Renaissance ideal, the Universal Man (12). The great Stuart architect Inigo
Jones, who first made the English public acquainted with Palladian principles
of proportion and design, was thought to possess the Vitruvian pretensions of
the architect (13). In 1624, in a satire, Ben Jonson wrote about him :
He has Nature in a pot! 'boue
all the Chemists,
Or bare-breeched brethern of the Rosie-Crosse!
He is an Architect, an Inginer,
A Souldier, a Physitian, a Philosopher,
A general Mathematician..... (14)
-43-
Thus, since the seventeenth
century, the comprehensible world of the Vitruvian architect and mathematician
and the occult and mystical world of the followers of Hermes Trismegistus and
Christian Rosencreutz became two important elements of the freemasonic thought.
***
Freemasonic
philosophy
It was only in 1717 when
Modern English Freemasonry was finally organized under the Grand Lodge of
London, formed by the union of four London lodges, that the philosophical
symbolism was officially recognized and with it the moral significance of the
tools and methods used in the building trade. Utensils such as the square stood
for righteousness, justice and virtue and the compass circumscribed moral
behaviour and served as a measurement for harnessing the passions: " keep
within the compass and you will be sure to avoid many dangers which others
endure (15)." The level symbolized equality, the plumb rule and
uprightness, the trowel for " spreading the cement of brotherly love
(16)." The unhewn stone, or rough ashlar, that is part of the furniture of
every Masonic lodge, is said to represent "man in his infant or primitive
state, rough and unpolished", the polished stone or perfect ashlar
represented man "in the decline of years, after a regular well spent life
in acts of piety and virtue (17)." (Fig. 1)
|
1 True Plan of a Lodge for the
Reception of an Apprentice, showing the Masonic emblems : Joachin and Boaz
(3) the steps to the Temple;(4) the Mosaic Pavement; (5) the western gate;
(6) the gate to the interior chambers; (7) the southern gate; (8) the eastern
gate; (9) the hammer; (10) the trowel; (11) the tracing board; (12) the uncut
stone; (13) the cubic stone with pyramid; (14) the compasses; (15) the plumb;
(16) the level; (17) the square; (18,19,20) the western, southern and eastern
lights; (21) the globe; (22) the flaming star; (23) the houpe dentel�e; (24)
the three lights; (25) the seat of the Grand Master; (26) the altar; (27) the
stool; (28) the sun; (29); the moon. United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE),
London. |
-44-
The aristocratic and
middle-class fraternity of the eighteenth century still talked of building
"Solomon's Temple" which represented perfected man. It was the task
of Freemasonry, of its "apprentices", "companions" and
"masters" to reconstruct the original proportions of this "moral
edifice" and the procedures of building were often used to illustrate the
process of spiritual development (18). Those men who joined the Craft belonged
to a variety of ranks and religious beliefs, tradesmen, gentlemen, doctors,
merchants, Christians, heterodoxists, anticlericals. Many reasons might have
motivated these people to become masons. One was the simple social life and
conviviality of the Lodge, but another was that enlightened men were attracted
by a society where up-to-date ideas could be discussed. Then there was the
appeal of the esoteric, secret, and the mysterious (19).
But one of the strongest
motives was the desire of amateur architects to further their architectural
education .As a Pocket Companion for Free-Masons laid down:
No man ought to attain to
any Dignity in Masonry who has not at least a competent Knowledge in
Geometry and Architecture..... (20).
Masonic lodges became
places where gentlemen could receive instruction in mathematics, listen to
lectures on the new science, and be part of an association that claimed to be
descended from the earliest masonic architects who constructed the ancient
temples, the medieval cathedrals and practised the "Royal Art". The
freemason and architect Batty Langley (Fig. 2) ran a building school in Mead's
Court, Dean Street, where, together with his brother he gave lessons in
drawing, geometry, mechanics, architecture (21). He taught :
Young Noblemen and
Gentlemen to draw the Five Orders of Columns in Architecture, to design
Geometrical Plans and Elevations for Temples, Hermitages, Caves, Grotto's, Cascades,
Theatres and other Ornamental buildings of Delight, to lay out, Plant and
improve Parks and Gardens,... (22).
|
2 Batty Langley, frontispiece of The
Builder Jewel (1741) with masonic symbols. |
-45-
In The Constitutions of
the Freemasons (1723), James Anderson identifies the history of speculative
Freemasonry with an ideological interpretation of the history of Architecture. According
to him the "Arts of Building" attained the highest degree of
perfection under the emperor Augustus who was the patron of Vitruvius. Then
after the dark period of the Middle Ages one began "...to discover the
Confusion and Improperty of the Gothic Buildings, and in the Fifteenth and
Sixtheenth Century the AUGUSTAN STYLE was raised from its rubbish in
Italy...". Among all the architects of the Renaissance the importance of
Palladio and Inigo Jones is stressed: "...above all the Great Palladio who
has not been duly imitated in Italy though justly rivaled in England by our
great Master-Mason Inigo Jones..." (23) James Anderson is an important
figure since his book The Constitutions of the Freemasons, Containing the
History, Charges, Regulations of that Most Ancient and Right Worshipful
Fraternity. For the use of the Lodges (1722)�in which he reported the
history of the society and the Charges and regulations of masonic
conduct�remained the major source of masonic ideology throughout the world. Anderson
referred to the "Old Charges" but he modernised them.
As far as religion is
concerned, he wrote that freemasons had to believe in the "Religion in
which all Men agree"�that is, in a Universal Religion or the Religion of
Nature (24). The essence of this Natural Religion was based upon the belief in
a Supreme Principle Creator and in the understanding of the moral law. In all
freemasonic documents we find the expression: "In the name of the almighty
Creator of the world". Thus modern Freemasonry was a religious fraternity,
where freemasons as individuals could profess any creed except atheism. This
opened the way for the admission of members with different religious belief and
heterodox ideas resulting in an organization that takes no position regarding
creeds or religious beliefs beyond requiring that candidates believe in one
supreme Being (25). As increasing numbers of men reacting against the bitter
religious conflicts of the mid-century moved towards deism or pantheism,
masonic lodges in which by tradition doctrinal religion had no part could not
fail to seem attractive. John Toland, one of the leading figures of the radical
thinkers of the Enlightenment is known to have belonged to a masonic society
(26).
Modern Freemasonry placed
itself outside public society and thus it was independent and indifferent to
governments policies. The charge which refers to politics reveals this attitude
in a subtle, diplomatic way:
A Mason is a peaceable
Subject to the Civil Powers, wherever he resides or works, and is never to be
concern'd in Plots and Conspirancies against the Peace and Welfare of the
Nation....if a Brother should be a Rebel against the state, he is not to be
countenanc'd in his Rebellion, however he may be pitied as unhappy Man; and, if
convicted of no other Crime, though the loyal Brotherhood must and ought to
disown his Rebellion, and give no Umbrage or Ground of political Jealousy to
the Government for the time being; they cannot expel him from the Lodge, and
his Relation to it remains indefeasible (27).
-46-
A freemason could plot
against the state without risking being expelled from the Craft. Freemasons
wanted to avoid conflict with the government but at the same time did not
support government policy. The lodge sought to make a better society through
the virtue of each brother practised within a constitutional. setting derived
from British political tradition. The eighteenth-century British masons
attempted to recreate the order, civility and harmony they imagined to have
been embodied in the practices of the ancient constitutional government
enshrined in the Revolution Settlement of 1689. Freemasonry encouraged
fraternity and equality, as seen in the following passage:
The whole world is but one
great republic, of which every nation is a family and every particular person
is a child. To revive and spread abroad those ancient maxims drawn from the
nature of man, is one of the ends of our establishment. We wish to unite all
men of an agreeable humour and enlightened understanding, not only by the love
of the polite arts but still more by the great principles of virtue; and from
such a union, the interest of the fraternity becomes that of all mankind (28).
These utopian sentiments
could justify demands for concrete reforms, for the translation of those
private masonic ideals into public action: the abolition of privileges and
corruption and the institution of true fraternity and equality for all men. However
moderate and nonconspiratorial it may have been, its belief in civic duty,
virtue and the progress of human betterment gradually turned against
traditional privileges and established hierarchical authority and prepared the
soil for the late eighteenth century democratic revolutions in Europe. Politicians
feared that it could supply the focus for any potential revolt against them
since its utopian ideals and its rules ( the Charge on government and politics)
allowed it without admitting it clearly. This was one reason why princes, kings
and politicians of the eighteenth century wanted to participate in Freemasonry
and be on good terms with it. Walpole is a typical example of somebody who
became a mason in order to secure his position in the government. Being a
freemason allowed him to keep check on the radical fringe of the Whig party
(29) and on his opponents and to reinforce useful international political
alliances (30).
This introduces the problem
of the position of British freemasons within the political context of the
century governed by Walpole. With the election of Robert Walpole as Finance
Minister in 1721 politics were stable but the stability rested on the
systematic corruption of the Parliament by the executive. Walpole knew how to
manoeuvre his rivals and was able to raise his position from Finance Minister
to Prime Minister. He enjoyed the full confidence of the king and had the
control of the Crown's extensive patronage. He dominated the political life of
his time because he was able to control the members of political society in a
network of patronage and influence by awarding government positions and
pensions to his supporters in Parliament. By doing so he brought the
institutions of government into grave disrepute. This lax political pragmatism
proved that one of the most important Whig beliefs on the moral qualities
necessary to preserve a free government was no longer respected and this was
seen as a threat to the foundations of England's liberty-preserving
"mixed" constitution (31).
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The development of this
separation between power and morality, political reality of the time and ideal
socio-political concepts of the English Revolution legacy brought about a
gradual dissolution of the old party division as well as the development of a
strengthened Parlamentary Opposition party composed of discontented Whigs and
reformed Tories (32). By 1711 Shaftesbury had to admit that after 1688 Whigs
and Tories could no longer be identified with distinct social classes, because
also a: " ..noted friend to Liberty in Church and State an Abhorror of the
slavish dependancy on Courts " when in possession of power can, despite
his principles, become a " Royal Flatterer, a Courtier against his
Nature... (33)." Commonwealthmen like John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon
expressed the same conviction in one of their Cato's Letters (1724):
A Tory under oppression or
out of Place, is a Whig, and a Whig with Power to oppress, is a Tory (34).
Therefore during the
Georgian period the old party division became more a division between the Court
party (the party in power) and the Country party, as the Opposition was defined
(35). Many people involved in the new experiments of garden design belonged to
this Country party (36). Linda Colley, in her study on the Tory party from 1714
to 1760, argues that the Tories simply modified their attitude to meet changing
circumstances but preserved their ideological identity despite the necessary
alliances with Dissident Whigs. She concludes that a neutral and ideologically
homogeneous Country party never existed (37). It is certainly true that in the
early Hanoverian period it proved very difficult to organize an effective
opposition with a distinctive ideology and coherent policy. The different
elements making up the Country Opposition could not agree, for example, about
matters of religion or about who should enjoy active political power. Nevertheless,
none of the various element of the opposition wished to overturn the
constitution. The radical Whigs, described as Commonwealthmen or classical
republicans, were not democrats or opponents to the monarchy. The opposition
Tories, for their own part, gradually severed all links with Jacobism and
reconciled themselves to both the Revolution settlement and the Hanoverian
succession. It was the fear of corruption, more than anything else, which
united the disparate elements into an ideologically motivated opposition to the
political methods adopted by the establishment Whigs (38).. Their campaign was
as much moral as it was political. They all agreed on an ethic of civic virtue
which maintained that society and civil government could only be preserved by
the patriotic action and public spirit of man of property. However , the
'ideal' national regeneration they were longing for, was conceived, within a
merely utopian framework, as their aim was ( at least at this first stage
1722-1760): " to effect a confrontation of the actual world of Augustan
England with a country of the mind (39)."
Therefore, the secret
masonic society may have represented the ideal, virtuous, liberal society that
the Country party was longing for. It provided an ethical system that
emphasized fraternity, friendship and equality as well as the value of liberty.
These values were much praised by the Opposition: Lord Cobham erected the
Temple of Friendship at Stowe, and here he used to meet his circle of friends,
namely those on the side of the patriotic Opposition. This same building was
later named the Temple of Liberty in order to express the main belief of those
people whom he met there. Freemasonry could also furnish a sufficiently broad
religiosity of its memebers to accomodate both the Christian and the heterodox
or the anticlerical, and the Opposition was composed both by catholics like
Pope and anticlericals like the radical Whigs. Moreover, the masonic emphasis
on order, morality, virtue, fraternity and tolerance, naturally put freemasons
on the side of the virtuous "country" ideals as opposed to the
"court," which in Walpole's era stood for decadence and corruption.
-48-
Nevertheless the
constitutional order that permitted men to even imagine such perfect civil
society was appropriated after 1689 by a landed and commercial oligarchy that
identified itself with the court. Eighteenth century British freemasons were
caught in a cultural and rhetorical dilemma. They identified with the ideals of
the country, but their leadership lived, for the most part, like the court. As
a result the lodges never posed a threat to the state. Yet Freemasonry was
perceived as a potentially dangerous institution and could house a variety of
radical thinkers or people with oppositional political perspectives. Some of
these radical Whigs, (40) disillusioned with the outcome of the Revolution of
1688-9 at home, ventured across the channel to seek followers and they found
them in the Netherlands (41). These freemasons from the early eighteenth
century onward brought their discontent with the post-revolutionary order in
England to the Continent and exported into northern Europe an institution that
could provide a social nexus for displaced idealists, political agents and
subversive thinkers (42). This republican coterie safely tucked away in the
Hague was also well connected with the opposition Country party in England
(43).
***
Freemasonry and
Garden Architecture
What stands out from this
account of Freemasonry is that the importance of the role played by this secret
society within the context of the Enlightenment thought was an important one
and must be taken into account when considering this historical period. It is
significant that all these whom we have noted as influential in the creation of
the landscape garden had strong connections with Freemasonry (44).As we have
seen this secret society corresponded to a utopian world where they could
freely express their virtuous "country" ideals. Having established
this, we need now to discuss whether we can detect in the architecture of their
gardens any reference to freemasonic ideas. We have discussed above how the
Vitruvian concept of the architect and the importance of architecture as a
culmination of all other studies and therefore superior to them, reached
England in the sixteenth century and at about the same time it became a
fundamental concept of Freemasonry. Together with this Renaissance concept of
the architect as the master of all the arts central to human knowledge, the
other Vitruvian concept, followed by Renaissance architects like Alberti and
Palladio, which became a basic ideal of Freemasonry since the seventeenth
century, was the dialectic between Architecture and Morality.
The reconstruction of the
Solomonic Temple in freemasonic thought, represented both the intention to
imitate the rules of a "divine" architecture and to apply the natural
laws of proportion and balance as part of the search for an individual and
common purification. The Temple was the greatest achievement of Architecture in
ancient society, and so the preliminaries to a purification of society and a
reconstruction of the last values of that ancient society were achievable by
reconstructing the Temple. The Temple became a moral edifice as an example of
what was noble and splendid and true in the first ages of the world. In
eighteenth century England, Shaftesbury - who most probably was a freemason
(45) (Fig. 3) - revived this concept of the moral function of art applying to
the Neoplatonic concept of architecture as the first manifestation of the
cosmic order, his Moral philosophy of the "beautiful balanced soul"
thus asserting the correspondence between the harmony of the soul and the
harmony of Architecture (46). As a result, architecture becomes expression of
the "Inner Beauty" that is the Morality and Virtue of his creator:
"..The beauty and effect of their art consists in representing moral truth
(inward numbers) by means of harmonious symbols (outward numbers) (47)."
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|
3 Freemasonic emblem from
Shaftesbury �s Characteristics of Manners, Opinions, Times, London,
1724..The Royal Art of Freemasonry is represented by a brotherly shake of
hands over an altar composed of the three geometrical figures of the square,
circle and triangle. |
Shaftesbury 's dialectic
between Architecture and Morality and his idea of the "wise man" who
following moral behaviour becomes the "Architect of his own life" corresponds
to the idea of the reconstruction of an internal moral Temple that each
freemason with his behaviour endeavoured to reconstruct.
The purpose of masonic
initiation was to lead the probationer to knowledge through inner
enlightenment. During the initiation he was transformed symbolically into
Hiram, the legendary builder of the Temple. Thus it was not an external Temple
that had to be built, but an internal invisible one. It was the life and soul
of men that had to be the building material of the "Royal Art". This
temple was usually represented in the Renaissance with a circular shape similar
to the Pantheon. In 1554 Jean de Tournes in the illustrations of the Bible of
Cond� (Fig. 4) represented the temple as a "rotunda" with a dome like
Von Heemkerk in 1557. In Martin Von Heemkerk's engraving (Fig. 5) of the Temple
the two pillars Joachim and Boaz are also represented. (These two pillars
signified the entrance to the Temple-Lodge not only as a memory of the Temple
of Jerusalem but also as reminder of the seeking, finding and keeping of lost
wisdom). Thus Pantheon-like structures found their way into Masonic design as
the exemplum of the Solomonic Temple with all its symbolic and allusory
properties.(Fig. 6)
|
4 Anonymous, The Construction of
the Temple of Solomon XVI c. Xilography from the Bible de Cond�, c.1600. |
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|
5 Martin Van Heemskerk�s version
of the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, in an engraving by
Philip Galle, Bild-Archiv der �sterreichischen Nationalbibliotek, Vienna. |
|
6 Engraving from Le R�gulateur
du Ma�on of 1801 showing a pantheon structure on a base of seven steps,
with G in glazing star. Mason tools. A beehive, the seven stars, sun and
moon, and pyramid on cube |
-51-
The circular building was
also for Palladio the best representation of classical architecture and in his Quattro
Libri he refers with admiration to Bramante's round temple of S. Pietro
Montorio in Rome (48). We know that Palladio had been fascinated by this
structure, since he copied drawings of Roman Mausolea like the Mausoleum of
Romulus and the Temple of Palestrina and realized his ideal villa (La Rotonda)
as a centralized Temple-like form (49). The eighteenth century conception of
Palladio's Rotonda as the building which best represents the relationship
between Palladio and the ancients can also be detected in the "Capriccio
con la Rotonda" painted by Canaletto during his journey to England
(1750-55) (50). In this Capriccio, the Rotonda is painted with a structure
similar to the Pantheon, thus stressing the link between Palladio and its
classical sources. (Fig. 7)
|
7 Canaletto, Capriccio con Rotonda,
oil on canvas, 81.5 x 115.5 cm. Private collection, Rome |
It is no surprise then if
the eighteenth century English connoisseurs chose the temple-like building-
exemplified in the Rotonda - as the best representation of Palladian classical
architecture, probably attributing to it (since they were freemasons) the
masonic and allusory properties discussed above. If we consider the influence
of Palladio on the most important promoter of English Palladianism, Lord
Burlington, we can realize how the Earl was especially interested in reviving
the classical purity of Palladio and his famous villa at Chiswick can be
considered as an anticipation of the neo-classic style (51). If we compare
Chiswick villa (1726-9) with one of its main sources Palladio's Villa Capra (La
Rotonda 1570) we see how the Roman character prevails in the former (Fig.8-9). The
octagonal dome hall and the thermal windows derive from the drawings of Roman
baths which Burlington bought in Italy in 1730 (52).(Fig.10). The ceiling of
the Gallery apses and the octagonal dome are coffered somewhat along the lines
of the Palladian illustration of the Temple of Venus in Rome (53).(Fig.11-12). At
Chiswick these Roman ceiling features are unparalleled in grandeur and variety
of forms in spite of the minuteness of the building scale. The dimensions of
the house have always been a mystery to the point of wondering if Chiswick is
more a garden with a villa or a villa with a garden (54). The interpretation of
a garden with a villa is strengthened by the Jane Clarke's latest research on
the villa's possible significance as a masonic temple (55).
-52-
|
8
Chiswick Villa., London, Entrance front. |
|
9 Palladio Villa Almerico or
Rotonda, Vicenza, begun in 1565/66. |
-53-
|
10
Chiswick Villa. The garden front. |
|
11 The apse at the east end of the
Gallery, Chiswick House ( English Heritage). |
|
12 Illustration by Andrea Palladio
of the interior of the Temple of Venus in Rome, from the Quattro libri,
Book IV., Venice , 1570 |
-54-
In the garden, the link
with Freemasonry is also reinforced by the presence of two sphinxes on the
gatepiers (Fig. 13) and a miniature Pantheon with an obelisk on a circular pond
standing in front of it .It was generally believed that the prototypes of
initiatory architecture were Egyptian (Fig. 14-15), as Egypt was the home of Hermetic
magic developed by the Egyptian priests who venerated Hermes Trismegistus,
first Magus (56). In the same way the presence of pyramids and pyramid-like
forms in the early English landscape gardens like Cirencester, Castle Howard,
Stowe, Rousham, Studley Royal, Castle Hill, at such an early stage - well
before the later eighteenth century archaeological explorations of ancient
civilisations - could be understood as an expression of masonic ideals of the
garden's owner.
|
13 Statue of a sphinx at Chiswick
(English Heritage). |
|
14 Shinkel�s design for act II of
Die Zauberfl�te ( Mozart ) in the 1816 Berlin production, Shinkel Museum SM
XXII c/102. In this masonic play by Mozart, the Egyptian architecture was
amply used. Deutsches
Theatermuseum, Munich. |
-55-
|
15 A design for a Masonic
certificate for Lodges under the Grand Orient of France, from a
nineteenth-century printer�s sample book. Note the pyramids, palm trees,
Masonic tools, Egyptian architecture. Note the rock-work cavern on the left. |
Pope's preference for
pyramids is testified by his letter to Lord Bathurst where he advised his
friend to consider building a pyramid in his park (57).. The English architect
Hawksmoor designed the pyramid that decorates the landscape of Castle Howard
(Fig. 16). In that same garden Lord Carlisle engaged Vanbrugh to design
together with the gateway surmounted by a heavy pyramid, an obelisk (1714) on
the approach road to Castle Howard (Fig. 17-18). The fact that the obelisk was
intended as a reference to Egypt�though it was amply favoured by the Romans as
funerary architecture�is clear by the following letter written in 1742 by Pope
(who erected an obelisk in his own garden), where he advised his friend Martha
Blount to build an obelisk in her garden at Sherbourne Park in Dorset in honour
to the family of Lord Digby:
I would sett up at the
entrance of'em an Obelisk, with an inscription of the Fact: which would be a
Monument erected to the very ruins; as the adorning & beautifying them in
the manner I have been imagining, would not be unlike the Egyptian Finery of
bestowing Ornament and curiosity on dead bodies (58).
-56-
|
16 Castle Howard. Pyramid by
Vanbrugh |
|
17 Castle Howard, Obelisk |
-57-
|
18 Castle Howard Entrance gateway
by Vanbrugh |
The obelisks in freemasonic
symbolism were associated with the sun and mythologized astronomical phenomena.
They were symbols of continuity, power, stability, resurrection and
immortality. At Stourhead this symbolism of the obelisk was reinforced by a
copper sun or"mythra" which surmounted it. The proof of its existence
is given by a poem published in the December issue (1748) of The Gentleman's
Magazine and by a report given in 1755 by James Hanway which described the
obelisk as one hundred feet tall and situated on the highest point at the end
of the terrace called Fir Walk (59). An obelisk, situated at the centre of an
octagonal pool (Fig. 19), was also present at Stowe (dismantled in 1759)
together with a pyramid sixty feet high (Fig. 20) which was probably the last
building conceived for Stowe by Vanbrugh. It was already in place in 1724 when
Viscount Perceval visited Stowe : "The Pyramid at the End of one of the
walks is a copy in miniature of the most famous one in Egypt, and the only
thing of its kind I think in England (60)."
|
19 Stowe. Rigaud, "View of
the Great Basin, from the Entrance of the Great Walk to the House." Ink
and Wash. 1733-34 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,, Harris Brisbane Dick
Fund, 1942. |
-58-
|
20 Stowe. Rigaud, "View from
the foot of the Pyramid." Ink and Wash 1733-34 Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1942. |
William Kent, was probably
aware of the meanings associated with the obelisk and the pyramidal form,
since, not only did he design an obelisk for Thomas Coke's country estate at
Holkham Hall, he also placed a stepped pyramid over the central block of his Temple
of British Worthies at Stowe (Fig. 21). Within the oval niche of the
aforementioned pyramid was set a bust of Mercury. Mercury was an important
figure for freemasons as his Greek name was Hermes, the messenger of the Gods,
the herald and keeper of mysteries and also the god of trial and initiation. He
was called Trismegistus, the Thrice-Greatest Hermes who was identified with
Euclid (and hence with Pythagoras) and after whom Hermetic (or Egyptian) wisdom
was named (61).
|
21 Stowe, Temple of British Worthies |
-59-
At Rousham, according to
MacClary's letter (1750), a pyramid building was also erected in the garden in
1738/39, while in the Praeneste the presence of a statue of Mercury/Hermes is
mentioned. This mythological figure is also present at Chiswick House. As
explained by Jane Clarke, the ceiling painting in the Red Velvet Room portrays
the resurrection of the arts by Hermes/Mercury. The masonic symbols of mallet,
compass and square are all present. The painting is dominated by Hermes
accompanied by two putti, one holding a jewel and one a cornucopia, another
masonic symbol. The central panel of the ceiling is surrounded by other signs
of the zodiac with their Gods. The study of the stars was an important aspect
of Hermetic philosophy and key to secret knowledge (62). The signs of the
Zodiac adorn the ceiling of many a lodge and this supports Clarke's thesis of
the use of Chiswick House as a masonic temple. What may also be interesting is
the fact that Burlington based the Assembly Room at York on Palladio's Egyptian
Hall and the lodge at Edinburgh and Dublin, to mention but two, are Egyptian
Halls.
Furthermore, as mentioned
above, Burlington's miniature Pantheon and its obelisk in circular space, also
bear a masonic message (Fig. 22). Coustos explained the masonic symbol of the
point within a circle: "the Compass being placed with one of its points on
the ground cannot fail in the correctness of the circle which the other point
describes, thus also the Master should circumscribe his actions so they be
without fault, and thus complying set a good example to others (63)." An
engraving of Claremont, recently discussed by John Harris and which he dated to
the period of Newcastle's patronage of Kent, shows a miniature domed
pantheon-like temple (unexecuted) with a four column portico on the top of the
garden amphitheatre (64). Similarly to Chiswick, in the centre of the circular
pond in front of the Pantheon, was set an obelisk. (Fig. 23) The same
pantheon-like building with an obelisk in front of it is shown on the first
page of a Masonic song-book published in Berlin. (Fig. 24) and appeared in a
text vignette in in Shaftesbury's Characteristik of Men.. (1714) where
it was shown as "Templum felicitatis" (Fig. 25).
|
22 Chiswick,"Ionic Temple and
Orangery," painting by P.A. Rysbrack, c.1729, Devonshire Collection,
Chatsworth. |
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|
23 The amphitheatre and circular
pond at Claremont by an unknown English artist and engraver. Engraving.
King�s maps, British Library. |
|
24 Masonic song-book, Berlin 1798,
first page. United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), London. |
-61-
|
25 Emblem of the Templum
Felicitatis from Shaftesbury�s Characteristics of Manners, Opinions, Times,
London, 1724 |
This tradition appears to
have been continued later in the century when neo-classical architects took on
what had been established in England before 1750. James Curl has demonstrated
that the neo-classicist fascination for Pantheon-like forms combined with
pyramids, obelisks and blank walls derived from Piranesi's visions of real
buildings of Antiquity, had strong links with Freemasonry (65). Essentially his
argument is that the key figures of the neo-classicism were freemasons and they
were inspired by masonic symbolism. The same argument could hold true for the
revival of Palladianism since this movement was exported to the Continent and
to America, through the Lodges, as a first stage of neo-classicism: Algarotti,
Fredrich II, Lodoli's circle, Laugier, Ledoux, Boull�e and some of the
revolution architects were famous promoters of a classical Neo-Palladianism and
prominent freemasons (66). The Rotonda as villa temple, for example, became the
model of neo-classical French architects like the freemason Ledoux (67). (Fig.
26)
|
26
C.N. Ledoux, Vue perspective du Palais Episcopal de Sisteron, in Architecture
de Ledoux, Paris 1847, Vol.I, pl.194. One of the several Ledoux buildings which derive from la Rotonda. |
-62-
It may be asserted
therefore that the eighteenth century enlightened English �lite looked at
Palladio in search of its classicism because this reflected the order and
simplicity of the ancient civilisations who derived their architectural rules
from the Temple of Solomon. After all this we can suggest that the presence in
the landscape garden of round temples (Temple in the Wood at Holkham Hall
(Fig.27), Temple of Ancient Virtue and Temple of Friendship at Stowe (Fig.
28-29) , Mausoleum at Castle Howard (Fig.30), Temple of Apollo at Stourhead
(Fig. 31) Rotunda at Hagley Hall, Doric Temple at Rousham) rotunda like
buildings (Temple of Four Winds at Castle Howard) (Fig. 32) and Pantheon-like
building ( Stourhead, Chiswick) (Fig. 33) could - not only refer to Gaspard or
Poussin paintings - but also to the round form of the Solomonic Temple, the
prime model from which Vitruvian Classical Architecture derived.. The creators
of those gardens, most of whom were freemasons, certainly knew that this kind
of building had potent symbolic visual properties. We know that Ralph Allen's
architect John Wood, when planning the park chapel for the garden at Prior
Park, made an explicit reference to the Solomonic Temple as he wrote he would
build the chapel : " in the manner in which King Solomon finished the
inside of this Temple of Jerusalem" (68). This masonic interpretation
would add to the richness of the referents, since the round temple already
existed in antiquity, was taken up by Bramante, and in its plan and section
represented a model of the perfection of the universe which is probably another
reason why freemasons, who were concerned with the perfectibility of the
people, took it as the ultimate model of architecture.
|
27 Holkham hall, Kent�s Temple in
the Wood |
|
28 Stowe, Temple of Ancient Virtue |
-63-
|
29 Stowe, Temple of Friendship |
|
30 Castle Howard, Mausoleum
designed by Hawksmoor. |
-64-
|
31 Temple of Apollo at Stourhead |
|
32 Castle Howard. Temple of the
Four Winds by John Vanbrugh. |
-65-
|
33 Stourhead, Pantheon |
(1) See Patrizia Granziera,
The Ideology of the English Landscape Garden 1720-1750, unpublished PhD
thesis, University of Warwick, 1997. See also Christopher McIntosh,
"Gardens of Initiation: Horticulture, Esoteric Symbolism, and the Spirit
of Play," in R. Caron, J. Godwin et al., eds., �sot�risme, Gnoses, and
Imaginaire Symbolique: M�langes offerts � Antoine Faivre, (Leuven: Peeters,
2001): 625-638.
(2) These lodges took their
names from London pubs (The Goose and Gridiron Ale-House in St. Paul's
Churchyard; Crown Ale-House in Parker's Lane, Apple-Tree Tavern in
Charles-Street, Covent Garden; Rummer and Grapes Tavern in Charles Row,
Westminster). Douglas Knoop, G.P Jones., The Genesis of Freemasonry,
Manchester, 1949, pp.159-163.
(3) The Old Charges are
preserved in at least 115 documents, of these some ninety exist in manuscript,
ten have survived only in print, some fifteen are missing.
(4) A.G. Mackey, "Gli
antichi manoscritti", Rivista Massonica, 68, 1977, pp .271-274.
(5) Douglas Knoop, op.
cit, pp. 62-72.
(6) Bernard Fay, La franc- ma�onerie, Paris, 1935, pp. 182-185.
(7) Knoop, op. cit., pp.
67-69.
-66-
(8) Their titles are: Allgemeine
und general Reformation der gantzen weiten Welt. Beneben der Fama Fraternitatis
dess l�blichen Orders des Rosenkreutzes, an alle Gelehrte und H�upter Europas
geschrieben e Fama Fraternitatis. Beneben Confession oder Bekantniss derselben
Fraternitet, an alle Gelehrte und H�upter in Europa gescrieben. C. Francovich, Storia della
massoneria in Italia dalle Origini alla Rivoluzione Francese, Firenze,
1975, p. 5.
(9) Yates, F. A The
Rosicrucian Enlightenment, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972, pp.
67-70. Yates explains that the Rosicrucian manifestos were connected to
Frederick V and contained political and religous allusions to the time when Frederick,
head of the union of German Protestant princes, tried to conquer Bohemia and
take the place of the Catholic king Ferdinand of Habsburg. This would have been
the universal reformation announced in the manifestos that the Bohemian wanted
to realize with the help of the Palatinate Elector.
(10) David Stevenson, The
Origins of Freemasonry. Scotland's century 1590-1710, Cambridge, 1988, pp.
97-105.
(11) Knoop, op. cit., p.
63.
(12) Stevenson,op. cit.,
p. 105.
(13) Cerutti, Fusco Annarosa,
Inigo Jones Vitruvius Britannicus, Jones and Palladio nella cultura
architettonica inglese 1600-1740, Rimini, 1985, pp. 9-39.
(14) F. A. Yates, Theatre
of the World,, London, Routlege and Kegan Paul, 1969, pp. 88-89. In
Anderson's Constitutions of Freemasonry, 1721, Inigo Jones is referred
to as " Great Master Mason". See also A.A. I. Campagnol, "Le
costituzioni dei liberi muratori", Rivista massonica, 56, 1989, p.
187.
(15) Margot Guralnick,
"The All-seeing eye", in Art and Antiques, Jan. 1988, p. 65.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Norman Mackenzie,
Secret Societies., London, 1967, p. 162.
(18) Ibid.
-67-
(19) J.M. Roberts, The
Mythology of Secret Societies, London, pp. 25-27.
(20) Knoop, p. 138.
(21) Batty Langley wrote in
1728 New Principles of Gardening. His book was one of the first to be
published on gardening which praised the irregularity of gardens.
(22) Eileen Harris,
"Batty Langley: A Tutor to Freemasons (1696-1751)" in Burlington
Magazine, 119, 1977, pp. 327-333.
(23) J. Anderson, The
Constitutions of the Freemasons, London , 1723, p. 37.
(24) Ibid., p. 48.
(25) Stevenson, op.cit.,
pp. 117-124.
(26) M.C. Jacob, The
Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans, London ,
Allen & Unwin, 1981
(27) James Anderson, op.
cit., pp. 48-49.
(28) On the design of
Masonry. Delivered in the Union Lodge, Exeter, n. 370, 1770, in Oliver, Golden
Remains, Vol. 1, pp. 197-99.
(29) M.C.Jacob, op.cit.,
1981, p.162.
(30) His house Houghton
Hall was the scene of one lodge meeting, the initiation in 1731 of Francis Duke
of Lorraine. That initiation occurred precisely at a time when Walpole was
seeking to reinforce Austrian-English relations, for the purpose of preventing
a European war. His ambiguous behaviour towards this secret society is also
proved by the fact that he financed a newspaper called The Freemason
whose first number ( 13 November 2021) issued a satirical article where
Freemasonry was ridiculed. See
A. Mellor, Unsere Getrennten Bruder die Freimauer, Graz, 1964, pp.
116-117.
-68-
(31) Geoffrey Holmes and
Daniel Szechi, The Age of Oligarchy, New York, 1993, pp. 12-26; G. V.
Bennet, "Jacobitism and the Rise of Walpole" in McKendrick, Neil ed.,
Historical Perspectives in English Thought and Society in Honour of J.H.
Plumb, London, 1974, pp. 70-92; A. S. Foord, His Majesty's Opposition
1714-1830, Oxford, 1964; William Speck, Stability and Strife, London
1977; J. H. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1950 and Sir
Robert Walpole, London 1960; Christine Gerrard, The Patriot Opposition
to Walpole: Politics, Poetry and National Myth, 1725-1742, New York, 1994;
Linda Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy, Cambridge, 1982.
(32) A.S. Foord, His
Majesty's Opposition 1714-1830 , Oxford, 1964, pp. 136-159.
(33) A. A. Cooper, 3rd Earl
of Shaftesbury, The Moralist , London, 1711, ii, p. 170.
(34) Thomas Gordon and John
Trenchard between November 1720 and July 1723 published a series of letters
signed by " Cato" first in the London Journal , later in the British
Journal. These appeared with a number of additions by Gordon as Cato's
Letters, 4 Vols., London 1724. These two writers belonged to that group of
Whig neo-Harringtonians ( James Tyrell, Andrew Fletcher, Henry Nevile, Walter
Moyle, Robert Molesworth, ) who believed in the Whig canon of ideas about
political liberty and associated with Shaftesbury's campaign at the time of the
Exclusion Crisis. J.A.A. Pocock, Politics, Language and Time, New York,
1971, pp.115-33.
(35) H.T. Dickinson,
Liberty and Property, London, 1977, pp. 121-194.
(36) The Opposition was
heterogeneous, but we can say that it was composed mainly of two groups: the
reformed Tories and later those disappointed Whigs which were often referred to
as the Boy Patriots. The group of liberal Tories had Viscount Bolingbroke,
owner of Dawley Farm, as a leader. Returned from exile in 1723 after being
pardoned for complicity with the Jacobites he was forbidden to resume his seat
in the House of Lords. His associates included Lord Bathurst ( 1684-1775), the
owner of Cirencester country seat and a member of the Scribblerus club, the
centre of the Tory propaganda campaign against Walpole which was led by Swift
in 1713 and which included Bolingbroke, Pope , Dr. Arbuthnot and Edward Harley,
2nd Earl of Oxford. The latter was another Tory who, after the Whigs' triumph,
decided to sympathize with the liberal Tories. He retired to his estate (Dawn
Hall, Wimpole) to cultivate the arts and learning, and fraternized with Pope
and Swift among others. The Boy Patriots included Lord Cobham (Stowe),
Lyttleton, Allen, Pitt, the Whig architects Pembroke and Burlington with their
gardeners Bridgemen and Kent, as well as Southcote (Worburn farm) Shenstone
(Leasowe) and Dormer (Rousham). Patrizia Granziera The Ideology of the
English Landscape Garden 1720-1750 , unpublished PhD Thesis, University of
Warwick, 1997.
-69-
(37) Linda Colley, In
Defiance of Oligarchy , Cambridge, 1982.
(38) H.T. Dickinson,
Liberty and Property, London, 1977, pp. 121-194.
(39) Maynard, Mack, The
Garden and the City: Retirement and Politics in the Later Poetry of Pope 1731-1743
, London Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 9.
(40) The most well known
extreme Whigs were: John Toland, Matthew Tindal,Robert Clayton, Edward Clark,
Sir Robert Molesworth, William Simpson.., Anthony Collins, John Trenchard,
Thomas Gordon.
(41) M. C. Jacob, op.cit.,
1981, pp. 20-24.
(42) Shaftesbury journeyed
frequently to the Netherlands and was a great friend of Benjamin Furly an
English republican who maintained a salon in Rotterdam , kept a library of
heretical books and established his home as meeting place between English
republicans, Dutch dissenters, French refugees. According to Jacob, Shaftesbury
thought of his associates in the Netherlands as the �Holland Whig Party� and
endeavoured to distribute copies of Toland's edition of Harrington's work Oceana
among them. Ibid., p. 93.
(43) Bolingbroke, a
promoter of the Opposition ideals, had friends among the radicals in the
Netherlands and endorsed the masonic society called �the Knight of Jubilation�
which was founded in 1710 at the Hague ( with the participation of Toland and
Anthony Collins) and whose member where mainly pantheists and republicans. Ibid.,
pp. 93-94.
(44) Patrizia Granziera The
Ideology of the English Landscape Garden 1720-1750 , unpublished PhD
Thesis, University of Warwick, 1997, Appendix.
(45) We know already of
Shaftesbury's probable connection with a lodge created in The Hague in 1710,
whose members were mostly republicans and pantheists. Further evidence of his
membership of the fraternity is the illustration on the first page of his work Characteristicks
published in 1714: the emblems of all the arts based on mathematical and
geometrical science are here united and the "Royal Art" of
Freemasonry is also represented by a brotherly shake of hands over an altar
composed of the three geometrical figures of square, circle and triangle.
(46) Quotation from A.O.
Aldridge, "Shaftesbury and the Deist Manifesto", Transaction of
the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 41, Philadelphia, 1951, p. 331.
-70-
(47) Ibid., p.339.
(48) Andrea Palladio, I
Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, Venezia, 1570, Chap, XVII, p. 64.
(49) Robert Tavernor, Palladio
and Palladianism, London, 1991, p. 77.
(50) W. G. Constable,
Canaletto, Giovanni Antonio Canal 1697-1768, 2 Vols., Oxford 1962, II, p.
415.
(51) Richard Boyle 3rd Earl
of Burlington (1694-1753), who most contributed to the diffusion of the ancient
Roman canons of architecture as formulated by Vitruvius and practised by the
apostle Palladio, was a Whig and for the first three years of George I's reign
enjoyed the height of his political success, but when in the spring of 1733 Sir
Robert Walpole brought in the Excise Bill, he joined the Opposition with
Bathurst, Chesterfield and Cobham, and like many of the opposition members,
decided to retire to the country : "At once...he ceased to be a Whig thus
forfeiting all future chances of favour. Then as though to cast off forever his
association with the capital and ministerial functions he packed up the best of
his pictures and moved them permanently to Chiswick.." James Lees-Milne,
Earls of Creation, London, 1962, p. 59; This book provides the best
all-around account of Burlington life. More recent work includes: the exibition
catalogue, Apollo and the Arts, Lord Burlington and his Circle, ed. J.
Wilton-Ely, University Gallery Nottingham, 1973; Lord Burlington and his
Circle (Papers given at a Georgian Symposium on 22nd May 1982) and Lord
Burlington: Architecture, Art and Life, London, 1995 ed. by Toby Barnard
and Jane Clark.
(52) Burlington published
in 1730 "Fabbriche Antiche", a first volume of a planned two volume
set, covering the unpublished reconstructions of ancient buildings drawn by
Palladio and bought by Burlington during his second Grand Tour. The first
volume concentrating mainly on Roman Baths consists of twenty-six engraved
plates. The second volume on arches, theatres and temples never appeared. See
Dana Arnold, Belov'd by Ev'ry Muse, Essays to celebrate the tricentenary of
the birth of Lord Burlington. London, 1995, p. 515.
(53) Peter Murray," Il
Palladianesimo Inglese", Bollettino C.I.S.A., Vol. XV, 1973, pp.
307-324.
-71-
(54) Lord Harvey exclaimed
on first viewing it, " House! Do you call it a house? Why! It's too little
to live in, and too long to hang to ones watch.",quoted in Dana Arnold, op.
cit., p. 32.
(55) Jane Clarke, "The
Mysterious Mr. Buck", Apollo, 129, 1989, pp. 317-322. In a recent
article: "Palladianism and the Divine Right of the Kings", (Apollo,
April, 1992) Jane Clark argues that Lord Burlington could have belonged to a
Jacobite lodge, thus proving the links between the revival of Palladianism and
the Jacobite ideals. As a proof of this she discusses the masonic symbolism of
Chiswick with reference to the higher degree of the Royal Arch and the so
called � Scottish or Ancient Masonry�. But the Scottish Masonry was simply a
more elaborate form of masonic philosophizing, it meant all the higher grades
which were added to the three authorized by English Freemasonry , it did not
come from Scotland and was not all a Jacobite plot, on the contrary , as Jacob
maintains it reflected a more radical �country� idealism. The schism between
the Ancients and Moderns occurred in 1740 and was a revolt of lesser men
against betters. Brothers began to criticize the social exclusivity of some
lodges and to demand a more egalitarism. Their literature suggests more
democratic tendencies in the English world, included a dedication to virtue and
merit and more stress on the cult of Hermes and Hermetic philosophy with its
pantheistic and cabalist associations. See J. Roberts, op. cit., pp.
94-100, M.C. J. Jacob, Living the Enlightenment. Freemasonry and Politics in
Eighteenth Century Europe, New York, 1991, p. 54, 60-63; A. E. Waite, A
New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, London, MLMXXI, p. 403.
(56) In the scenography of
the masonic play Magic Flute by Mozart (1794) the Egyptian architecture was
amply used. See Jurgis Baltrustraits, Saggio sulla leggenda della
forme, Paris, 1985, p. 42-58.
(57) G. Sherburn ed., The
Correspondence of Alexander Pope, Vol. 2, Oxford, 1956, p. 517.
(58) Ibid., p. 239.
(59) The Gentleman's
Magazine, 18, December 1748, p. 568; J. Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days
Journey, 2nd ed., London, 1757, I, pp. 137-38.
(60) G.B.Clarke ed., Descriptions
of Lord Cobham's Gardens of Stowe, 1700-1750, Buckinghamshire Record
Society, n. 26 (n.p., 1990), 16.
(61) A. E.Waite, op. cit.,
p. 11.
-72-
(62) Jones Bernard E. ,
Freemasons Book of the Royal Arch, London, 1957, p. 229.
(63) "The Trial of
John Coustos by the Inquisition", Ars quatuor Coronatorum, 65,
1954, p. 114.
(64) Thomas Pelham, Duke of
Newcastle was created Master mason of the Norwich Maid's Head Lodge in 1731
together with Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (Chesterfield House), J.
Anderson, op. cit., p. 129.
(65) James Stevens Curl,
The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry , London, 1991.
(66) C. Mignot, "Lettura del Palladio nel XVII secolo: una riservata
ammirazione" in Palladio e la sua eredita' nel mondo , Milano,
1980, pp. 207-213; M. Gallet and M. Mosser, "Il neo-classicismo o il vero
Palladio riscoperto", in ibid., pp.195-206; W. H. Adams, The eye of
Thomas Jefferson , Charlottesville, 1981, pp. 234-304.
(67) C.N. Ledoux, E.L.
Boulle�, J.J. Lequeu and many architects working in Paris in the 1770 and 1780 were
known freemasons and in their architectural design they utilised a vast
vocabulary of Masonic or quasi-masonic emblems. See Werner Oechslin,
"Premesse all'Architettura Rivoluzionaria", Controspazio ,
1970, Gen/feb, pp.2-13; Anthony Vidler, The Writing of the Walls,
Princeton 1987, and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Architecture and Social
Reform at the end of the Ancien Regime, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1990.
(68) John Wood, An Essay
towards a Description of Bath , Bath, Kingsmead reprints,1749, p. 433. John
Wood was a freemason, who in his architectural treatise The Origin of
Building: or the Plagiarism of the Heathen detected (1741), derives the
origins of the proportional rules and Vitruvian orders from the Solomonic
Temple.