A_ ....~.
Medicis

by Howard R.

C~ntributi~n fr~m
of

It is generally agreed that Speculative
Masonry owes certain of its symbols,
precursors of its ritual, and the founda-
tion of its system of moral ethics to a
group of seventeenth and eighteenth
century philosophers who were ac-
cepted into Masonry. In turn, these
philosophers were indebted to an earlier
resurgence of Italian interest in classical
literature which led to the recovery of a
large amount of ancient knowledge,
some of which proved to be of immeas-
urable value to Masonry. It would be
ludicrous to claim that one family was
responsible for this, but the Medici
family of Florence, Italy, stood in the
forefront of the movement, contributing
directly to man's overall progress and
indirectly to Speculative Masonry. The
purpose of this paper is to distinguish
those contributions.

The classical revival called the Renais-
sance first flourished in Italy because
the necessary ingredients were close at
hand. While most of Western Europe
dwelled in the twilight of the Middle
Ages, Italy was never far removed from
classical influence. A stable economy
and maintenance of trade with much of
the known world allowed continuing
contact with various cultures and ideas.
Financial support for artists and
scholars came from wealthy patrons
such as the Medicis, the Sforzas of
Milan, and Pope Julius II and Leo X.
While others languished, the Italians
built libraries and experimented with
new styles in art and architecture.

As a result of the above, the Italian
fourteenth century brought a new per-
spective on the civilization of ancient
Greece and Rome. Central figures in
this movement were Florentians
Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boc-
caccio, and in their followers can be
seen the development of the charac-
teristic features of humanist thought,
especially the conviction that Greek and
Latin classics contained the highest ex-
pression of human values--the dignity
and freedom of man. As a result, desire
for knowledge of Greek history and lit-
erature was kindled, and teaching of the
Greek language flourished. I

It is to be remembered that much of
the classical knowledge reached West-
ern Europe at various times and in
various ways. During the seventh and
eighth centuries, Islamic hordes swept

96

I the
Florence

Stewart, MPS

through the Middle East, traversed
North Africa and the Straits of Gibral-
tar, overran the entire Iberian
Peninsula and advanced into France
bringing with them much of their lore.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
Crusaders returning from the Holy
Land brought Judaic and Islamic prin-
ciples to Sicily where the court of Frie-
drich II had become a clearing-house
for all such currents of thought. Then,
in 1453, the remains of the Byzantine
Empire fell to the Turks, and Byzantine
scholars fled to Italy carrying with them
the treasures and teachings of at least
ten centuries, e.g., texts on Hermeti-
cism, Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism,
Cabbalism, astrology, alchemy, and
sacred geometry; in short, virtually all
the teachings and traditions compiled at
Alexandria, Egypt, during the first to
third centuries A.D. Finally, when Fer-
dinand and Isabella of Spain ordered
the scourging of Judaic and Islamic
thought in 1492, there was a mass ex-
odus of scholars to Italy. Scholars and
historians concur that the influx of ideas
from Byzantium and Spain represent
the most significant contributions to the
Italian Renaissance. Much of this mate-
rial was collected under the egis of
wealthy families like the Medicis who
were powerful enough to escape the
wrath of the Church. The extent of this
power is exemplified by the fact that
three popes were members of the Med-
ici family, Leo X, Clement VII, and
Leo XI. 2

Given no credence but definitely of in-
terest is the mythical version of the pas-
sage of knowledge from east to west. It
is said that two streams of knowledge,
one from the south and one from the
east, converged in the mountains of Ar-
cadia in Greece where they were fed
into the Alpheus River and ultimately
into an underground stream created by
the river god, Alpheus, when he
pursued his love, the wood nymph Are-
thusa, from Greece to the island of
Ortygia in the harbor of Syracuse in
Sicily, where he united with her in the
Fountain of Arethusa.3

The Medici family dirRcted the desti-
nies of Florence from the mid-fifteenth
to the mid-eighteenth century. As wool
merchants and bankers, they grew in
power and wealth until they ruled all of
Tuscany. They built palaces and villas,

Fiftieth Anniuersa~ Year

churches and chapels, and their exten-
sive collections of paintings and sculp-
tures formed the basis of the magnifi-
cent galleries of Florence. The patriarch
of the clan was Giovanni de Medici
(1360-1424), but it was his son, Cosimo
the Elder (1389-1464), who was the first
Medici to rule Florence and become a
patron of the arts. He was a shrewd
politician who avoided holding public
office, governing instead through sup-
porters and dependents. An immensely
wealthy man, he actively patronized ar-
tists, architects and scholars, and estab-
lished galleries and libraries. Under his
patronage, classical scholars were sent
out to all parts of the known world with
instructions to seek out ancient manu-
scripts and bring them to Florence for
preservation and translation into more
useful language. Prominent among the
artists he patronized were Brunelleschi,
Donatello, Ghiberti and Fra Angelico.
His life so impacted Italy that after his
death in 1464, he was called Pater
Patriae, Father of his country. 4

Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo the
Magnificent (1449-1492), continued the
family patronage becoming an ac-
claimed poet and a towering figure of
the Italian Renaissance. Among those
enjoying his patronage were Botticelli,
Fra Fillipo Lippo, Feosole and Mi-
chelangelo. Lorenzo's descendants were
also philanthropic and carried the
family's efforts well into the eighteenth
century. 5

The contributions of the noble Italian
families have been referred to as the key
to the door of the path to Truth. It had
been felt that somewhere in the ancient
classics lay the Truth that God had orig-
inally given to man. This concept had
fallen by the way during the suppres-
sion of the classics by the Catholic
Church, but the resurgence of classical
study reopened the door, and untold
numbers of Platonic, neo-Platonic and
Pythagorean works, as well as other
classics, were translated from Greek to
Latin and made readily accessible.
Under the patronage of Cosimo de
Medici, Marsilio Ficino translated the
entire body of Plato's work and estab-
lished the Platonic Academy in which to
house them. It was during these transla-
tions that scholars discovered a prin-
ciple crucial to Masonry. In Timaeus,
Plato had established the earliest known
relation between the Creator and the
Architect of the Universe. He called
him "tekton," meaning builder and
"Arche-tekton, " meaning master
builder. It was Plato's theory that the
"Arche-tekton" created the world by
means of Geometry, the science which
came to be called sacred. 6

In addition to a major Platonic

The Philalethes, August 1996
academy, other academies were estab-
lished throughout the Italian Peninsula
and became bastions of esoteric tradi-
tion. The stream of knowledge issuing
from these academies ultimately flowed
northward into France converging with
that which had found its way to Fland-
ers and the Netherlands from Spain.
The flow northward was hastened by
the patronage of the houses of Guise
and Lorraine in France. Rene d'Anjou,
duke of Lorraine and a scholarly col-
league of Cosimo de Medici, saw to the
transplantation of Italian Renaissance
thought to France. 7

During the progression northward,
the currents of knowledge were forced
to flow between Roman Catholic tradi-
tions on one bank of the stream and the
traditions of the monarchies on the
other, both of which had been the pre-
vailing systems of authority for centur-
ies. Despite the rigors of passage, the
fame of the Medicis spread throughout
Europe and Britain. Students
frequented the Italian centers during
the fifteenth century. Northern
monarchs found brides among the
ruling families of Italy, and the en-
tourages accompanying their brides to
their new homes included classical
scholars, or humanists, serving as
secretaries, attendants and poets in
such numbers that the northern courts
soon became centers of patronage for
the rediscovered learning. Disciples of
sorts emerged, e.g., Giordano Bruno
(1548-1600), an Italian Dominican
monk who has been called " the first
major Renaissance figure to call for a
broad and tolerant ethic of world peace
and universal brotherhood 9 ~ 8

All along the way, the C atholic
Church sought to retain its long-estab-
lished monopoly on learning, but
humanist scholars in France, Germany
and Spain defended the study of the
Greek classics and worked to remedy
abuses in the church and to make basic
Christian texts available to the general
public. In England, one of the strongest
proponents of this movement was Sir
Thomas More (1478-1535). Others in-
cluded Dr. John Dee (1527-1608), Inigo
Jones (1573-1652), and Robert Fludd
(1574-1637). 9

At this point it may appear that I have
strayed from the main point of the
paper, but this is not so. The Medics
served as a conduit for rediscovered an-
cient mystical concepts which sup-
posedly had been eradicated by the
Church. ~ome romanticists have argued
to the contrary, claiming it unnecessary
for Masonry to look without its bounds
for the " hidden knowledge, " since it
had possessed it all along. After all, had
Masonry not been before the world in
God, with Adam in Paradise and in
vogue among those who built the py-
ramids and King Solomon's Temple? At
the time these romanticists wrote, it was
commonly believed that medieval oc-
cultism, at least that part consisting of
alchemical, astrological and Cabalistic
doctrine, was Hermetic in origin due
either to direct descent from the Greek
god, Hermes, or to an ancient Egyptian
sage, Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice
Greatest. Today, most feel that the Her-
metic reference is to a collection of writ-
ings, first written in classical Greek and
compiled in Alexandria, Egypt, around
the first to third centuries A.D. This
compilation was done to protect the
knowledge from destruction by the
early Christian Church. Somehow,
these works survived and were con-
verted into a book or books entitled
Hermes Trismegistus, which may have
been the source of references to Hermes
in the old manuscripts or Old Charges.
Regardless of how it came to be, the real
significance is that after passage to
Florence, certain Hermetic works,
modernized and rewritten in the ver-
nacular, became available to the general
public. And for that, in large part, we
can thank the Medici family. 10

In summary, only one contribution
need be listed in order to show that the
Medicis were benefactors of Masonry.
That is the recovery of the Legend of
Eternal Life which has become the most
important Masonic allegory of all. And,
there are others--the Pythagorean
theorems, the concept of progression of
the soul through steps or degrees, the
spiritual aspects of architecture and the
concept of geometry as a sacred science,
the concept of harmonious ordering of
human society, universal brotherhood
and the relationship of man to his God
and to his own soul. The Medicis in-
vented none of these concepts, but they
were instrumental in their preservation
and transmission. The classical revival
they helped to spawn preserved the wis-
dom of the ancients and helped to reor-
ganize the order of mankind. Last, but
not least, they indirectly benefitted
Speculative Masonry by fostering a suc-
cession of humanist disciples who would
later convey to Speculative Masonry the
ability to maintain the power of myth
and symbolism without regressing to
medieval occultism.

NOTES

1. Myron P. Gilmore, "Renaissance," Ency-
clopedia Americana (1958~, 23:367-73

"Humanism," Encyclopedla Americana
(1958), 14:487-88.

2. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, The
Temple and the Lodge (New York, N.Y.: Ar-
cade Publishing, 1989), 35-39; "Medici," The
Concise Columbia Encyclopedia licensed from
Columbia University Press. Copyright (~ 1995
by Columbia University Press.

3 . "Arethusa, " Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright
o 1993 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (3
1993 Funk and Wagnalls Corporation, "Al-
pheus or Rouphia," Encyclopedia Ameri-
cana (1958), 1 :438f.

4. "Medici," Encyclopedia Americana (1958),
18:544-5; "Medici, Cosimo de," Microsoft (R)
Encarta. Copyright g 1993 Microsoft Corpora-
tion. Copyright (~) 1993 Funk and Wagnalls
Corporation .

5. "Medici," Encyclopedia Americana (1958),
18:544-5-

6. Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry
Lincoln Holy Blood - Holy Grail (New York,
N.Y.: Bantam Doubleday Ddl, 1983), 139
Baigent and Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge
138.
7. Ibid, 138-39.

8. William H. Stemper, Jr., "Pre-Masonic Intel-
lectual Currents:The Ideas Which Made
Freemasonry Possible," The Philalethes, Oc-
tober 1990, 6, attributed to Frances A. Yates
Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition.

9. "Renaissance," Encyclopedia Americana
(1958), 23:367-73.

10. Harry L. Haywood, " HermesTrismegistus, "
Mackey ' s Revised Encyclopedia of Freemasonry
(1966), 3:1257.
