The Concept of Science in the Imagination of European Freemasonry

SECRET SAVANTS, SAVANT SECRETS: THE CONCEPT OF SCIENCE IN THE IMAGINATION OF EUROPEAN FREEMASONRY Andreas Önnerfors Everybody takes his seat in the inner room or cham- ber, the only embellishment of which is a painting representing Minerva or the image of the goddess of wisdom lowered in a light cloud or sky, with some freemasons visible around her to which she points at the resolution of natural Phenomena beneath the proverb ‘Under the guidance and in company of Wisdom, we are safe and protected on the most dangerous abysses and alleys’. —Relation Apologique et historique de la societé des Franc-Maçons, 17381 The Relationship between Savant Culture and Freemasonry in the Eighteenth Century This article investigates the conceptual relationship between educated culture and freemasonry in the eighteenth century. After its official incep- tion in London in 1717, freemasonry spread within decades as one of the most popular if not paradigmatic forms of sociability, first within Britain, then to France and the rest of Europe and overseas colonies. Its transfor- mation from a professional guild of stonemasons into a secret society, a society in private space, has occupied many previous scholars. Hitherto no definite or convincing explanation has been put forward regarding the reasons why freemasonry underwent this significant change. Certainly the 1 J.G.D.M.F.M. [anonymous author], Relation Apologique et Historique de la Societe des Franc-Maçons (Dublin, false imprint, 1738), 54–55. This anonymous tract was put on the index and burnt at the stake by the Catholic inquisition in 1739 but already during the year of its appearance also translated at least to German and Swedish. Gründliche Nachrichten von den Frey-Maurern (Frankfurt/M. 1738), itself partly a translation from an English book, Freemasons’ Pocket Companion of 1735 served most likely as the blueprint for the Swedish translation inserted in July and August 1738 as a supplement to the Swedish newspaper Stockholms Post-Tidningar, “Anmärckningar Wid Swenska Post-Tidningarna”, no. 31–35 transcribed and commented by Kjell Lekeby, Fri-Murare 1738 (Uppsala 1997). Unfortu- nately I had only full access to the French original and its Swedish translation. © ANDREAS ÖNNERFORS, 2013 | doi:10.1163/9789004243910_020 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.Andreas Önnerfors - 9789004243910 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:24:04AM via free access 434 andreas önnerfors knowledge accumulated among craftsmen and architects was attractive for early Enlightenment savants to tap into. Far from being simple work- men, freemasons needed elaborate theoretical skills in order to construct edifices of ecclesiastical and profane architecture. This might explain why one of the earliest accounts of an initiation into freemasonry (1646) stems from Elias Ashmole (1617–1692)—a non-craftsman and founding member of the Royal Society.2 The close relationship between scientific culture and freemasonry increased greatly in the early eighteenth century. Based on Margaret C. Jacobs’s writings on the topic, Paul Elliot and Stephen Daniels have concluded that “Freemasonry was stimulated by Newtonian natural philosophy, and that in turn Freemasonry helped to shape Enlight- enment scientific culture by promoting secular and progressive forms of civic culture”.3 Initiated by Newton’s assistant, John Theophilus Desau- guliers (1683–1744), an experimental scientist, inventor and fellow of the Royal Society, the fraternity of freemasons in 1723 published its (previ- ously internally communicated) Constitutions and Charges, outlining the foundation myths and the organisational structure of freemasonry, which as such was a typical act of erudition of the period.4 Here, the terms “art” and “sciences”, often in the combinations “royal art” and “noble sciences”, have a significant position and will receive further elaboration later. The perception of a relationship between freemasonry and educated culture was strong and manifested in various ways. An initial thorough presenta- tion of a diorama displaying the workings of a masonic lodge will be presented as one of the most peculiar representations of this perception, with an attempt to outline how “arts” and “sciences” are represented in this remarkable piece of visual art and printing culture. Subsequently, briefly treating the membership of savants in Masonic lodges, the last part of the paper attempts to map a discourse on the relationship between freema- 2 An overview of the relationship between craft freemasonry and the phenomenon of accepted freemasonry is given by Matthew Scanlan, ‘The Mystery of the Acception, 1630–1723: A Fatal Flaw’, Heredom 11 (2003), 55–112. 3 Paul Elliot and Stephen Daniels, ‘The “School of True, Useful and Universal Science” Freemasonry, Natural Philosophy and Scientific Culture in Eighteenth-Century England’, British Journal for the History of Science 39 (2006), 207–229: 209, and Jacobs’ works refer- enced herein. The authors capitalised the term “freemasonry”. Together with many other researchers in the area, I prefer to spell freemasonry with small letters, stressing that it is not one unified phenomenon or entity, but rather a dynamic concept of fraternal sociability with many variations. 4 For practical reasons, I have used the online edition of the first American reprint carried out by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia in 1734 available on the URL: http:// digitalcommons.unl.edu/ (accessed 22.09.2009). All subsequent page numbers refer to Franklin’s reprint. Andreas Önnerfors - 9789004243910 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:24:04AM via free access secret savants, savant secrets 435 sonry and science as it appeared in two masonic journals in Vienna and London in the 1780s and 1790s. A View into the Scientific Workings of a Masonic Lodge? Engelbrecht’s Diorama One of the major innovations of European print culture was the invention of printed miniature theatres, optical parlour toys, peep shows or dioramas. When consecutively mounted and arranged front to back within a display box, cut-out plates printed on cardboard (in the following named “wings”) create a three-dimensional perspective scene. This concept, cop- ied from theatre stage scenery, is both simple and revolutionary: it allowed the viewer a look into something, creating dimension through enhanced perception. Early masters of this printing technique were the brothers Martin (1684–1756) and Christian Engelbrecht (1672–1735), print-sellers and engravers in Augsburg.5 Martin Engelbrecht had engraved a spectacu- lar series of illustrations, ranging from contemporary European potentates to images of Rugendas and other classical masters, and his work has been characterised as being “beyond comparison”.6 His other works included illustrations for Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The War of Spanish Succession, 92 views of Venice, and a series of prints of workers and their dresses. Engelbrecht’s earliest dioramas are dated around 1730. His engraved cards inserted in a display box showed religious scenes and pictures of everyday life in perspective view, among these the Expulsion from Paradise, the Final judgement, the Festival of Tabernacles, scenes from a rural “Okto- berfest”, a royal jousting, miners at work in an underground coalmine, and many others.7 Optical prints such as Engelbrecht’s dioramas were a form of elaborate and certainly expensive eighteenth-century entertainment, representative for early visual media and precursors of later forms of three-dimensional and cinematographic illusionism. In this context it is 5 Janet S. Byrne, ‘Ephemera and the Print Room’, Metropolitan Museum Journal 24 (1989), 285–303: 295–296. 6 Stephen Gertz, ‘The Miniature Theaters of Martin Engelbrecht’, published on 23 July 2009 on URL: http://www.bookpatrol.net/2009/07/miniature-theaters-of-martin.html (accessed 21.09.2009). 7 A comprehensive overview of the works of Martin Engelbrecht is provided by Mar- tin Bircher, ‘“Horribilicribrifax” illustriert: Engelbrecht und Bodenehr als Illustratoren von Andreas Gryphius’ Lustspiel’, in Norbert Honsza and Hans-Gert Roloff (eds.), Daß eine Nation die ander verstehen möge: Festschrift für Marian Szyrocki zu seinem 60. Geburtstag (Amsterdam 1988), 97–122: 98–99. Andreas Önnerfors - 9789004243910 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:24:04AM via free access 436 andreas önnerfors fascinating to find an Engelbrecht diorama, dated between 1730 and the middle of the century, displaying a scene from a lodge of freemasons (titled “Franc-maçons Freymaurer/Loge”, engraved by Jeremias Wachsmuth, 1711–1777) and, more relevant for this volume, to find the activities of this masonic lodge intimately related to science.8 The view into secret space of a freemason’s lodge, where the members are by no means performing secret rituals but rather are occupied with scientific work, is extraordinary.9 What is the link between secrecy and science, and the self-perception of savants in the eighteenth century? How did freemasonry imagine the concept of science? And how was freemasonry perceived as scientific? 8 As per September 2009, I had located following copies: Library and Museum of Free- masonry (London); Centre de Documentation Maçonnique (Brussels); Österreichisches Freimaurermuseum (Rosenau); Deutsches Freimaurermuseum (Bayreuth); CMC (The Hague); Museum of the Grand Loge National de France (Paris); the East Lancashire Pro- vincial Museum in Manchester. I want to express my thanks to all the curators who provided me with information and images related to these dioramas. Another copy is held in a private collection in Italy. In the exhibition catalogue The Freemason’s Raiment of Light (Tours 2002), 222 and 223, six cardboards of Engelbrecht’s diorama are presented (dated here to 1760). Rüdiger Wolf (ed.) writes in the exhibition catalogue Mozart: Experi- ment Aufklärung im Wien des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts (Wien 2006), 379, that the diorama “illustrates the role of sciences and arts in the lodges”. For an image of the diorama exposed in 2006, see the exhibition catalogue Österreichisches Freimaurer-Museum (Wien 1994), 123. Erich Lindner in Die königliche Kunst im Bild (Graz 1976) reproduces as no.

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