It may be accepted as a fact, that the German Lodges. and German artistic usages were planted here. Thus for example, Rumohr says in his "Italienischen Forschungen", that, without seeking them, you are constantly stumbling in different places upon the traces of German artists who in the 13th and 14th centuries found appointments and employment, as at that period German taste in painting and architecture was being imitated all over Italy. Further, as has been already shown, Rosicrucianism early found entrance there. Freemasonry, in the present meaning of the word, did not strike root in Italy before 1733, neither has it, since then, been able to fix itself firmly in the soil. The first Lodge in Florence was called together by Br. Charles Sackville, Duke of Middlesex, in that year, and in his honour the brethren had a medal struck by Lorenz Natter. At first, the Fraternity was known under the name of "Compania della Cucchiara" (Company of the Trowel), and afterwards they assumed the appellation of Franchi Muratori. The initiation of the Grand Duke Francis caused Freemasonry to thrive there, so that in 1735 Lodges were erected in Milan, Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Venice, and Naples. But in 1737 the last Grand Duke of the house of Medicis, John Gasto, published an edict against the Freemasons. However, on his death, which occurred soon after, they continued to meet, and his successor patronised them. Fresh persecutions arose from Rome. Livorno being a free port, the Lodge there was composed of the population of the place, consisting of

1 See II. Part, Berlin, 1827. Page 143. The same: Page 167, where it is said: "He (Vasari) had obtained intelligence concerning the influence of the architects and stonemasons of Germany on many of the buildings in Italy, which I have multiplied by several authentic examples."

The "Freimaurer-Bibliothek" quoted: Acta Hist. Eccles. Vol. I. Appendix, page 114.

3 See Freimaurer-Bibliothek I, page 45.

Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, and this excited the suspicions of the Papal See, who feared lest unbelief would be aided and abetted by them. The Congregatio de Santo officio therefore instituted a strict inquiry, the result of which was, as already mentioned, that Pope Clement XII. issued the well-known Bull against the Fraternity in 1738. When the government at Florence received this, it was immediately despatched to the Grand Duke at Vienna, to obtain instructions how to act. Francis wrote back, that in order not to offend the Papal See, they were to accept the Bull but not to carry it into execution, and in case of necessity to decline acknowledging the Pope's right to interfere at all. Every Lodge which conducted itself quietly and with propriety should remain perfectly unnoticed by the Government. Notwithstanding this, the clergy in Florence succeeded afterwards, by their various intrigues, in obtaining an order, to commence judicial proceedings according to the very letter of the Papal Bull. In consequence, May 19, 1739, Br. Crudeli was unexpectedly attacked in his own house, seized, and taken to the prison of the holy office.1 Happily an influentical Brother had carried off his masonic papers to a place of safety in good time. Besides this brother, many others were arrested and in all haste, before the Grand Duke could be made acquainted with the state of affairs, the torture was applied to extort their secret from them. But all in vain; the prisoners were soon set at liberty, and once more the Inquisition was disappointed in its design of extirpating the Order.

Venice. We have but very scanty and unsatisfactory intelligence touching the dissemination and efficiency of Freemasonry in Italy, and now and then even these slightly reliable intimations fail almost altogether. In Venice, in 1738, the Lodges were closed, but secretly re

1 The Freimaurer-Bibl. cites a passage from the Europ. State Secretary, 52. Part.

opened. The English book "Jachin and Boaz" in No. 438, mentions the Lodge "Union" in Venice as having been founded by the English Grand Lodge, Nov. 27, 1772.

Naples and

Of all the Italian States, Freemasonry had Sicily. most to suffer in Naples and Sicily. Several Lodges had long been at work in this kingdom, composed1 of men of known worth, who filled the first offices at the court and under government, when King Charles III. of Spain, who then ruled over Naples, interdicted all Masonic meetings by royal edict. He was, however, afterwards reconciled to the Fraternity, so that when Benedict XIV. published his Bull, he not only protected the Masons, but confided the education of the heir to the throne (Ferdinand IV.) to one of the brethren, and then made him the Prince's Confessor.

In the year 1754, several brethren came together, and at first worked under the authority of the Lodge of Marseilles. In 1760, they received a constitution from the Grand Lodge in Holland. A few years later, the Lodges there, taking courage from their favourable outward condition, and from the daily increasing number of the masons, induced the Grand Lodge of England to constitute them a Provincial Grand Lodge. In a General Assembly, convened with the approbation of the then Grand Master Principe di Caramanica, the Masons of Naples, taking into consideration "that it was no longer suitable" that in this free nation they should work under foreign superintendence, and that moreover the English Brethren did not conduct themselves "as good and true superiors should",

1 See Geschichte der Schicksale der Freimaurer in Neapel. Frankfort, 1779. Wiener Journal für Freimaurer, 1785, I. Quartal, P. 70, Lecture of Born, after: Histoire de la Perséc. Londres, 1780. (Reprintin an English translation in Freemasons' Magazine, 1861. Nr. 85, Lenning. Encycl. III.

ed

&c.)

2 See circular epistle of the Great National Lodge in the Kingdom of both Sicilies, of Dec. 1775. Lenning, Encycl. III.

resolved to constitute a Grand National Lodge of their own, called del Zelo, and to join the united Lodges of Germany (Strict Observance). Four Lodges worked under her in the capital, viz: della Vittoria (established Feb. 27, 1764, Br. Carracioli, W. Master), dell' Uguaglianza, della Pace, and dell' Amicizia, one in Messina, another in Caltagirona, and in Catania and Gaeta. Besides these there were two Lodges in the capital working after the English rite, which were looked upon as spurious Lodges by the National Lodge.

Whilst the number of the Lodges increased in both kingdoms under the superintendence of the Grand Master di Caramanica, and Freemasonry flourished, and whilst the names of the most considerable statesmen added brilliancy to the list of members, Ferdinand IV. ascended the throne. The prejudices which his minister. Tanucci had endeavoured to instil into his mind against the Fraternity seemed at first to find the less acceptance with him, from their meeting with direct contradiction in the conduct of many men of tried integrity whom he knew to be Masons. Indeed, the report was circulated that the King himself wished to become a member of the Fraternity. Unfortunately this gave occasion to a persecution being set on foot against the Craft. Tanucci, whose greatest ambition was to set up an impenetrable wall of separation between the King and his people, made use of every expedient to induce the King to sign a decree prohibiting all masonic meetings whatever, and commissioning the Junta of the State to proceed against transgressors of this edict as disturbers of the public peace, and guilty of offending Majesty.

This decree was publicly proclaimed. The brethren in Naples were astonished at the unexpected intelligence, but they were passive and obeyed. The Grand Master forbade all work. "This adverse fate", he says in an official address of Dec. 6, 1776, "has not been induced by a single inadvertence on the part of our true brethren,

but more probably by the imprudent and offensive conduct of those schismatics who, having been seduced from their allegiance by the Duca della Roca and the Principe di Ottojani, do most foolishly and reprehensibly work according to the English Constitution. We, on the contrary, having profited by this emergency to arrange our legitimate work with greater accuracy, have yieldeld implicit obedience to the Royal command, believing this to be the most favourable opportunity for removing from our society all such elements as we consider prejudicial to the practice of those virtues required of a genuine Freemason."

This decree, however, did not satisfy the Minister, for with the assistance of a venal hireling, G. Pallante, he hoped to compass the entire annihilation of the Order. G. Pallante, by means of a stratagem, caused a kind of Lodge to be convened, at which several non-Masons assisted, and then had all who were present seized. The trial took a different turn from what he had excepted. He then made use of another expedient. When, at the Festival of St. Januarius in 1776, the blood of the saint would not flow, he commanded hired women to parade the streets crying out that the holy man refused to work the miracle because the city was infested with the plague of Freemasonry. The people became so furious at hearing this, that attempts were made to demolish the houses of the brethren. The zeal of a mason named Lioy added fuel to the flames, for he wrote a defence of the brethren, but couched in such violent terms that the pamphlet was burned by the public hangman, and Lioy himself banished from Naples. The brethren, wherever they could be seized upon, were imprisoned in order afterwards to be executed. All of a sudden, in the hour of the sorest need, events took a more favourable turn. Queen Caroline, a daughter of Francis I., heard of these persecutions and of all the artifices employed by Pallante, to carry out his treacherous designs. It was represented to her that, as her father had been a member of the community, his