Naples : St. Clara Church- tomb of King Robert

 

Italiano : Per dimensioni è il più grande monumento funebre del

Medioevo in Italia . Opera dei fratelli Bertini di Firenze (1343-45 ) . Splendido il ricco sarcofago sostenuto da pilastri cui sono addossate sei statue di virtù .Sopra ,nella camera sepolcrale ,con angeli reggicortina ,la statua giacente del re vestito della tonaca Francescana e vegliato dalle allegorie del trivio (Grammatica ,Retorica e Dialettica ) e del quadrivio (Aritmetica ,Geometria ,Musica e Astronomia ) , più in alto ,il re seduto in faldistorio ,sotto ,l'epigrafe che si vuole dettata dal Petrarca : ( Cernite Robertum regem virtute refertum ).

 

English: For size is the largest funeral monument of the Italian Middle Ages by the Bertini brothers of Florence (1343-45). Splendid the rich sarcophagus supported by pillars which are supported by six statues of virtue. Above, in the sepulchral chamber, with angels a little reggicortina, the lying statue of the king dressed in the Franciscan habit and watched over by the allegories of the trivium (Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectic) and the quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy), higher up re sitting in faldistorio, below, the epigraph that you want dictated by Petrarch: (Cernite Robertum regem virtute refertum)

  

Carrugio

Il termine deriva da quadrivium forse con l'apporto di "carro". Secondo taluni potrebbe derivare da carriaggi, dalla parola di lingua francese charriage (variante in lingua spagnola carruaje; latino càrrus+àticum, ovvero carràticum o carriàticum, carro+aggio) o forse è la parola araba kharuj che significa uscita (sul mare?) ...

da Wikipedia it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caruggi_di_Genova

 

Chiavari e il suo carrugio in un tranquillo sabato estivo.

I am going to sound like a bossy teacher but this image is well worth looking at for a second. It is extremely unusual, a thirteenth century stained glass window that is not religious but celebrates the achievements of the arts and science . The rose window is the North transept of Laon Cathedral in Northern France . Laon is a fascinating town with a marvellous cathedral we always used to stay in the town on our way south but I think most people just drive by it on their way to Reims

The glass in the nine openings of the rose window is early 13th century and the earliest remaining in the cathedral. The window contains scenes representing the sciences as understood and practiced in the thirteenth century - the trivium and the quadrivium - the sciences and the liberal arts.

Philosophy in the centre with her head in the clouds , then going clockwise from twelve o’clock 1 Rhetoric writing on a tablet on her knees; 2 Grammar, with the rods with which she threatens the little children seated at her feet; 3 Dialectic; 4 Astronomy holding a bushel; 5 Mathematics ; 6 Medicine; 7 Geometry and finally Music.

Anyway sorry for the lesson but in my opinion its remarkable window as far as I know unique

The shot was hand held at a fairly high ISO it would have been clearer with a tripod

 

THANKS FOR YOUR VISIT TO MY STREAM.

I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD NOT FAVE A PHOTO WITHOUT ALSO LEAVING A COMMENT .

 

Caruggio o Carruggio ([ca'r:ud:ʒo], Caroggio in genovese) è una strada, vicolo o anche porticato tipico dei centri storici liguri. Il termine deriverebbe dal latino quadrivium, o dal più popolare quadruvium.

The Torre dell'Orologio is a 15th-century renaissance tower on the Piazza delle Erbe in Mantua, Italy. It is attached to the Palazzo della Ragione, and next to the Rotonda di San Lorenzo. It houses an astronomical clock.

The tower, with a square ground-plan, was constructed in 1472–1473 by Luca Fancelli, a Florentine architect working for Ludovico III Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, on the foundations of a previous 13th-century construction. A door at ground floor level gives access to the Palazzo della Ragione.

In 1473 the astronomical clock was installed, the work of Mantuan mathematician Bartolomeo Manfredi. The clock ran without incident for nearly a century, until the mechanism failed in 1560. It was repaired by Francesco Filopono, mathematician and astronomer. It stopped again in 1700. The mechanism was restored in 1989 by Alberto Gorla.

The statue of the Immaculate Madonna under the clock dates from the early 17th century, as does the marble balcony.

The bell above the tower strikes the hours.

The Emilia earthquakes of 2012 damaged the tower, which was closed while repairs were carried out. Within the tower, the Museum of Time exhibits old components of the clock. The top of the tower offers views of the city and the surrounding lakes.

The clock dial, at a height of approximately 15 metres, is protected by an arched canopy. It was once surrounded by 12 circular frescoes depicting the arts of the quadrivium: as the plasterwork has fallen away, only the four underneath the canopy are now visible. The fresco position at the top of the dial was later replaced by a metallic moon sphere.

The outer ring numbers the hours from I to XXIIII. The next ring, inset, has 24 divisions (12 white and 12 black), representing the unequal hours (with the period of daylight divided into 12 "hours" and the nighttime divided into 12 "hours").

In the centre of the inset is a protruding disc, showing the twelve signs of the zodiac. Inside the zodiac, another overlaid disc, numbered up to 29 in threes, represents the date of the lunar month. At the centre of the dial, the goddess Latona (mother of Apollo and Diana – the Sun and Moon) sits with open arms, a deer at her feet. Her left hand rests on a circular aperture which shows the lunar phase. Outside the aperture, a pointer indicates the Moon's position in the zodiac. Latona's right hand, holding a sickle in the shape of the crescent moon, indicates the date of the lunar month.

The clock's off-centre blue semicircle with thirty golden studs, fixed to the zodiac ring between Libra and Pisces, represents the celestial equator.

The dial has two hands. The longer hand, with a star and pointer, indicates the time. (Traditionally time showed was Italian hours, counting from sunset. Today, for ease of reading, the time shown is from midnight to midnight.) The other hand shows the sun and indicates solar time, permitting calculation of the equation of time, the difference between solar and conventional time.

This semicircle and the lunar indications, in combination with the dial's other indications, enable the calculation of planetary hours, and therefore facilitate astrological predictions.

The clock mechanism is in wrought iron; the mechanism stands on a wooden base.

Pope Alexander VI (Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia was elected pope in 1492) entrusted the decoration of the rooms in his apartment (now known as the Borgia rooms) to Pinturicchio. The paintings, which were executed between 1492 and 1494, drew on a complex iconographical program that used themes from medieval encyclopedias, adding an eschatological layer of meaning and celebrating the supposedly divine origins of the Borgias. The rooms are: Room of the Sibyls, Room of the Creed, Room of the Liberal Arts, Room of the Saints, Room of the Faith.

A fast food Weeel outlet offering frozen yogurt at the Biblioteca Geral Da Universidade De Coimbra.

 

The sculpture is "The Liberal Arts - Trivium and Quadrivium" or "The Mamudas".

 

The trivium consists of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, while the quadrivium consists of arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry. Together they lead students to see a “unified idea of reality.”

 

The Mamudas a less common term, but in the context of Portuguese universities, The Mamudas refers to the collection of seven carved wooden figures that represent the Seven Liberal Arts, with the Trivium and Quadrivium being their subject matter.

iPad, ar

500px | FLICKEFLU | WERKAANDEMUUR | My Website | Getty Images

 

As you can see in the Medieval Period there were more colors then only grey...

 

La torre campanaria di Santa Maria del Fiore fu iniziata da Giotto nel 1334, portata avanti, dopo la sua morte, da Andrea Pisano ed ultimata nel 1359 da Francesco Talenti, creatore dei finestroni dei livelli alti. Estremamente ricca è la decorazione scultorea con 56 rilievi in due registri sovrapposti e con 16 statue di grandezza naturale nelle nicchie opera di maestri fiorentini del '300 e '400, fra cui Andrea Pisano, Donatello e Luca Della Robbia.

 

Sulla facciata prospiciente il Battistero, nel registro inferiore, sono raffigurate la Creazione dell' uomo e della donna, il primo lavoro umano ed i fondatori biblici di diverse attività creative umane (pastorizia, musica, metallurgia, viticoltura). Nel registro superiore sono i 7 pianeti, incominciando con Giove all' angolo nord. Sulle altre facciate, poi, sono illustrate, in basso, l' astrologia, l' edilizia, la medicina, la tessitura ed altre attività scientifiche e tecniche. Nel registro superiore ci sono: a sud, le virtù teologali e cardinali; ad est, le arti liberali del Trivium e Quadrivium; a nord, i 7 sacramenti. Le statue nelle nicchie rappresentano patriarchi, profeti e re d' Israele, e sibille pagane. Gli originali di tutte le opere di scultura sono al Museo dell' Opera.

Law

Philosophy (Quadrivium)

Theology

Medicine

Four Faculties of Wrocław University (in XVIII century). Originals are 3m high baroque scultures, standing on corners of Maths Tower's view terrace. Made in 1733 by Fritz Mangoldt, survived all the storms of Wrocław's history. My version is made especialy for current exhibition and shown two floors underneath.

 

All are 4/5 layer gum dichromates 43x65cm on Arches 640 paper.

It shows clearly how difficult is to make

consistent series using this unrepeatable technique.

( Sanremo vecchia )

 

Il termine deriva da quadrivium forse con l'apporto di "carro". Secondo taluni potrebbe derivare da carriaggi, dalla parola di lingua francese charriage (variante in lingua spagnola carruaje; latino càrrus+àticum, ovvero carràticum o carriàticum, carro+aggio).

Nella toponomastica ufficiale il vocabolo caruggio è tradotto con vicolo. Vi ricorre anche un Carrubeus rectus, Vico Dritto o Via Retta, che portava all'antica Piazza Ponticello (Pontixello) cancellata a seguito dell'attuazione del piano regolatore del 1934, ovvero in data antecedente alla seconda guerra mondiale, a compimento della ristrutturazione dell'antico quartiere di Borgo Lanaiuoli e della zona di Ravecca, adiacente al Piano di Sant'Andrea.

Numerose sono le strette vie di Genova che portano il nome di "vico", meno frequentemente, vicolo, ma, accanto a queste, pur essendo caruggi a tutti gli effetti, alcune portano il nome di via o di piazza (meno frequentemente piazzetta), anche se di piazza di anguste dimensioni si tratta.

Buona parte dei caruggi che si dipanano da Sottoripa - oggi purtroppo in stato di forte degrado nonostante i ripetuti tentativi di restauro apportati - ha il nome di una specifico settore lavorativo, per lo più artigianale, poiché nel passato le varie attività erano accentrate in determinati vicoli dei principali sestieri (le porzioni in cui è tuttora suddiviso il centro storico).

Si hanno così via Orefici (o via degli Orefici o fraveghi, cioè fabbri), dove troviamo il bellissimo bassorilievo raffigurante l'Adorazione dei Magi e l'edicola dipinta su ardesia da Pellegrino Piola, vico Indoratori, piazza di Pellicceria (ove sin dal XIII secolo avevano sede le più pregiate pelliccerie di Genova), salita Pollaiuoli, Macelli di Soziglia, Campetto. Naturalmente, con il passare del tempo questa caratteristica ha perso molto del suo valore originario, anche se i vicoli genovesi continuano ad attirare turisti anche per la vasta e articolata offerta merceologica artigianale, garantita dalla presenza di numerose botteghe di restauratori in legno, antiche mercerie, laboratori artistici.

Alcuni vicoli hanno nomi suggestivi e di riferimento popolare, come vico dell'Amor Perfetto o vico Carabaghe (o vico delle Carabaghe).

Fino al 1958, prima che entrasse in vigore la Legge Merlin, nei caruggi genovesi avevano sede le più popolari e frequentate case di tolleranza che spesso mutuavano il nome dal luogo in cui erano ubicate.

Il termine deriva da quadrivium forse con l'apporto di "carro". Secondo taluni potrebbe derivare da carriaggi, dalla parola di lingua francese charriage (variante in lingua spagnola carruaje; latino càrrus+àticum, ovvero carràticum o carriàticum, carro+aggio).[senza fonte]

 

Nella toponomastica ufficiale il vocabolo caruggio è tradotto con vicolo. Vi ricorre anche un Carrubeus rectus, Vico Dritto o Via Retta, che portava all'antica Piazza Ponticello (Pontixello) cancellata a seguito dell'attuazione del piano regolatore del 1934, ovvero in data antecedente alla seconda guerra mondiale, a compimento della ristrutturazione dell'antico quartiere di Borgo Lanaiuoli e della zona di Ravecca, adiacente al Piano di Sant'Andrea.

 

Numerose sono le strette vie di Genova che portano il nome di "vico", meno frequentemente, vicolo, ma, accanto a queste, pur essendo caruggi a tutti gli effetti, alcune portano il nome di via o di piazza (meno frequentemente piazzetta), anche se di piazza di anguste dimensioni si tratta.

 

Buona parte dei caruggi che si dipanano da Sottoripa - oggi in stato di forte degrado nonostante i ripetuti tentativi di restauro apportati - ha il nome di una specifico settore lavorativo, per lo più artigianale, poiché nel passato le varie attività erano accentrate in determinati vicoli dei principali sestieri (le porzioni in cui è tuttora suddiviso il centro storico).

 

Si hanno così via Orefici (o via degli Orefici o fraveghi, cioè fabbri), dove troviamo il bellissimo bassorilievo raffigurante l'Adorazione dei Magi e l'edicola dipinta su ardesia da Pellegrino Piola, vico Indoratori, piazza di Pellicceria (ove sin dal XIII secolo avevano sede le più pregiate pelliccerie di Genova), salita Pollaiuoli, Macelli di Soziglia, Campetto. Naturalmente, con il passare del tempo questa caratteristica ha perso molto del suo valore originario, anche se i vicoli genovesi continuano ad attirare turisti anche per la vasta e articolata offerta merceologica artigianale, garantita dalla presenza di numerose botteghe di restauratori in legno, antiche mercerie, laboratori artistici.

 

Alcuni vicoli hanno nomi suggestivi e di riferimento popolare, come vico dell'Amor Perfetto o vico Carabaghe (o vico delle Carabaghe).

Cette pièce fut une des premières pièces à recevoir son décor : c'était la Chambre du Maître,

Antoine III de Clermont. Décorée de très beau médaillons représentant les 7 Arts Libéraux :

- les trois matières littéraires qui constituent ce qu'on appelle le trivium : la logique, la rhétorique, la grammaire

- les quatre matières scientifiques qui constituent le quadrivium : la musique, la géométrie, l'arithmétique et l'astronomie

 

Les arts libéraux étaient les principales matières enseignées à l'école à l'Antiquité et au Moyen-âge.

Puis, on a rajouté un 8ème médaillon avec Apollon et les 9 muses, divinités qui inspiraient et

protégeaient les artistes dans la tradition gréco-romaine.

 

Ces médaillons sur enduit sec, sont attribués à l'école de Fontainebleau ; le fruit d'un travail

entre Le Primatice et son élève et exécuteur testamentaire Ruggiero de Ruggieri. Le huitième serait attribué au Maître de Flore, autre élève du Primatice.

 

Ces œuvres ont été peu restaurées et sont dans un état de conservation exemplaire, seuls les cadres et le fond du décor de grotesques ont été remaniés au 19ème siècle. Des perroquets ainsi qu'un singe ont été peints en sachant que la reine Catherine de Médicis, épouse d'Henri II, aimait s'entourer de ces animaux...

Le plafond du 16ème siècle est un damier de 9 caissons, il est sans doute un des plus beaux de ce château. Dans son état d'origine, il a certes souffert de quelques infiltrations mais il n'a pas été retouché. La richesse de la polychromie est typique de cette époque Renaissance, des éléments moulés ont été insérés pour accentuer l'effet de profondeur.

 

Enfin, Antoine III a fait rajouter des médaillons, plus précisément des cartouches en papier mâché, peints avec les 12 signes du zodiaque, le plus visible de tous étant celui du poisson au-dessus du lit ou le lion. Rares exemples de cartouches et rosaces en papier mâché datant du 16ème siècle qui sont actuellement répertoriés en France.

 

Avant de quitter la pièce, nous noterons la présence de cette importante cheminée à griffe de lion, dont le décor était à la mode au 16ème siècle. Sur sa face vous pouvez voir peinte une ruche enflammée que le feu ne parvient pas à consumer d'où l'inscription latine en dessous "URIT NON CONSUMIT" qui signifie elle brûle sans se consumer. Certain y voit une allusion à l'état du royaume déchiré par les guerres de religions, la référence au nouveau mode de gouvernement mis en place à partir de la régence de Catherine de Médicis, la reine des abeilles et son essaim ou tout simplement une allégorie pour dire la persévérance dans les épreuves...

 

Source :

  

Source : www.guidigo.com/Web/Le-chateau-d-Ancy-le-Franc

الأَسْطُرلاب (ويقال له: الأصْطُرلاب)[1] هو آلة فلكية قديمة وأطلق عليه العرب ذات الصفائح. وهو نموذج ثنائي البعد للقبة السماوية، وهو يظهر كيف تبدو السماء في مكان محدد عند وقت محدد. وقد رسمت السماء على وجه الأسطرلاب بحيث يسهل إيجاد المواضع السماوية عليه. بعض الأسطرلابات صغيرة الحجم وسهلة الحمل، وبعضها ضخم يصل قطر بعضها إلى عدة أمتار[2].

وقد كانت الأسطرلابات حواسيبا فلكية في وقتها، فقد كانت تحل المسائل المتعلقة بأماكن الأجرام السماوية، مثل الشمس والنجوم، والوقت أيضا. وقد كانت ساعات جيب لعلماء الفلك في القرون الوسطى. وقد تمكنوا أيضا من قياس ارتفاع الشمس في السماء، وهذا مكنهم من تقدير الوقت في النهار أو الليل، كما يمكنهم من تحديد وقت بزوغ الشمس أو تكبد النجوم. وقد طبع على ظهر الأسطرلاب جداولا مبتكرة مكنتهم من هذه الحسابات. ويمكن لهذه الجداول أن تحتوي على معلومات عن منحنيات لتحويل الوقت، ومقومة لتحويل اليوم في الشهر إلى مكان للشمس في دائرة البروج، ومقاييس مثلثية وتدريجات لـ 360 درجة.[2]

محتويات [أخف]

1أصل الأسطرلاب

2كتب في أسطرلاب

3مراجع

4وصلات خارجية

أصل الأسطرلاب[عدل]

وأصل هذه الآلة غير معروف، وقد كتب "Theon of Alexandria" عن الأسطرلاب في القرن الرابع قبل الميلادي، وأول رسالة إغريقية محفوظة تعود للقرن السادس الميلادي.[2] وقد طور علماء الفلك المسلمون الأسطرلاب تطويرا كاملا في العهد الإسلامي بسبب حاجتهم لتحديد أوقات الصلاة واتجاه مكة. وقد بقي الأسطرلاب مستخدما على نحو شائع حتى سنة 1800م [2]. وهناك كتاب فقد أصله اليوناني ولكن نسخته العربية موجودة لحسن الحظ ورجع البعض أن مخترع الاسطرلاب بشكله المعروف هو ابن الشاطر العالم الدمشقي[بحاجة لمصدر]. وممن كتبوا عنه من اليونانيين أيضا يوحنا النحوي في القرن السادس الميلادي، وقد كتب كتابا عن الأسطرلاب المسطح بطلميوس صاحب المجسطى وعرفنا من اليعقوبي المؤرخ. وهناك كتابات باللغة السريانية حول الأسطرلاب ترجع إلى القرن السابع الميلادي وتنسب إلى سفيروس سيبوخت. على الرغم من كل هذا فإن هناك من ينسب هذا الاختراع إلى أبو إسحق إبراهيم الفزارى في القرن الثامن الميلادي!!.[بحاجة لمصدر] لكن المؤكد أن العرب عرفوا الأسطرلاب وأضافوا إلى المعرفة الإنسانية الكثير حوله، ومن الكتابات المشهورة عند العرب في هذا الشأن كتابات عبد الرحمن بن عمر الصوفي وهو كتاب العمل بالأسطرلاب ومنها الكتاب الكبير في عمل الأسطرلاب، وهو موجود وتم تحقيقه، وهناك باحثة يونانية كتبت رسالة دكتوراه في جامعة باريس (بالفرنسية والإنجليزية) عن الأسطرلاب وجهد عبد الرحمن الصوفي في ذلك، بل وحققت بعض أعماله، واسمها فلورا كفافيا.

وقد اخترعت مريم الاسطرلابي الأسطرلاب المعقد[3]

كان الأسطرلاب يستخدم في الملاحة العربية لتعيين زوايا ارتفاع الأجرام السماوية بالنسبة للأفق في أي مكان لحساب الوقت والبعد عن خط الاستواء. يتكون الاسطرلاب من العديد من القطع منها العنكبوت وهى قطعة كانت تمثل مدار الشمس في دائرة البروج وتجد أيضا بها النجوم وكذلك الصفيحة وهى القطعة التي كانت توضع عليها دوائر الارتفاع والسموت ومواقيت الصلاة والمنازل الاثنى عشر وغيرها الكثير وهناك قطعة كانت تسمى الام حيث كانت تحتوى جميع القطع والعضادة والفرس. تقسم الدائرة لدرجات لتعيين زوايا ارتفاع النجم أو الشمس لتحديد موقعه.

ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A3%D8%B3%D8%B7%D8%B1%D9%84%D8%A...

 

An astrolabe (Greek: ἀστρολάβος astrolabos, "star-taker")[1] is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers, navigators, and astrologers. Its many uses include locating and predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, determining local time given local latitude and vice versa, surveying, and triangulation. It was used in classical antiquity, the Islamic Golden Age, the European Middle Ages and Renaissance for all these purposes. In the Islamic world, it was also used to calculate the Qibla and to find the times for Salat prayers.

There is often confusion between the astrolabe and the mariner's astrolabe. While the astrolabe could be useful for determining latitude on land, it was an awkward instrument for use on the heaving deck of a ship or in wind. The mariner's astrolabe was developed to solve these problems.

OED gives the translation "star-taker" for the English word "astrolabe" and traces it, through medieval Latin, to the Greek word astrolabos] from astron "star" and lambanein "to take".In the medieval Islamic world the word "asturlab" (i.e. astrolabe) was given various etymologies. In Arabic texts, the word is translated as "akhdh al-kawakib" (lit. "taking the stars") which corresponds to an interpretation of the Greek word.Al-Biruni quotes and criticizes the medieval scientist Hamzah al-Isfahani who had stated: "asturlab is an arabization of this Persian phrase" (sitara yab, meaning "taker of the stars").In medieval Islamic sources, there is also a "fictional" and popular etymology of the words as "lines of lab". In this popular etymology, "Lab" is a certain son of Idris (=Enoch). This etymology is mentioned by a 10th-century scientist named al-Qummi but rejected by al-Khwarizmi.[6] "Lab" in Arabic also means "sun" and "black stony places"

An early astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world by Apollonius of Perga, around 220 BCE or in 150 BC and is often attributed to Hipparchus. A marriage of the planisphere and dioptra, the astrolabe was effectively an analog calculator capable of working out several different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy. Theon of Alexandria wrote a detailed treatise on the astrolabe, and Lewis[7] argues that Ptolemy used an astrolabe to make the astronomical observations recorded in the Tetrabiblos.[a] It is generally accepted that Greek astrologers, in either the first or second centuries BC, invented the astrolabe, an instrument that measures the altitude of stars and planets above the horizon. Some historians attribute its invention to Hypatia, the daughter of the mathematician Theon Alexandricus (c. 335 – c. 405), and others note that Synesius, a student of Hypatia, credits her for the invention in his letters.

Astrolabes continued in use in the Greek-speaking world throughout the Byzantine period. About 550 AD the Christian philosopher John Philoponus wrote a treatise on the astrolabe in Greek, which is the earliest extant Greek treatise on the instrument.[b] In addition, Severus Sebokht, a bishop who lived in Mesopotamia, also wrote a treatise on the astrolabe in Syriac in the mid-7th century.[c] Severus Sebokht refers in the introduction of his treatise to the astrolabe as being made of brass, indicating that metal astrolabes were known in the Christian East well before they were developed in the Islamic world or the Latin West.

Medieval era.A treatise explaining the importance of the astrolabe by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Persian scientist.

Exploded view of an astrolabe diagram of an astrolabe's tympan. Animation showing how celestial and geographic coordinates are mapped on an astrolabe's tympan through a stereographic projection. Hypothetical tympan (40 degrees North Latitude) of a 16th-century Europenan planispheric astrolabe. Astrolabes were further developed in the medieval Islamic world, where Muslim astronomers introduced angular scales to the astrolabe, adding circles indicating azimuths on the horizon.It was widely used throughout the Muslim world, chiefly as an aid to navigation and as a way of finding the Qibla, the direction of Mecca. The first person credited with building the astrolabe in the Islamic world is reportedly the 8th-century mathematician Muhammad al-Fazari.The mathematical background was established by the Muslim astronomer Albatenius in his treatise Kitab az-Zij (ca. 920 AD), which was translated into Latin by Plato Tiburtinus (De Motu Stellarum). The earliest surviving dated astrolabe is dated AH 315 (927/8 AD). In the Islamic world, astrolabes were used to find the times of sunrise and the rising of fixed stars, to help schedule morning prayers (salat). In the 10th century, al-Sufi first described over 1,000 different uses of an astrolabe, in areas as diverse as astronomy, astrology, navigation, surveying, timekeeping, prayer, Salat, Qibla, etc. Astrolabium Masha'Allah Public Library Bruges (nl) Ms. 522

The spherical astrolabe, a variation of both the astrolabe and the armillary sphere, was invented during the Middle Ages by astronomers and inventors in the Islamic world.[d] The earliest description of the spherical astrolabe dates back to Al-Nayrizi (fl. 892–902). In the 12th century, Sharaf al-Dīn al-Tūsī invented the linear astrolabe, sometimes called the "staff of al-Tusi," which was "a simple wooden rod with graduated markings but without sights. It was furnished with a plumb line and a double chord for making angular measurements and bore a perforated pointer."The first geared mechanical astrolabe was later invented by Abi Bakr of Isfahan in 1235.

Peter of Maricourt, in the last half of the 13th century, also wrote a treatise on the construction and use of a universal astrolabe (Nova compositio astrolabii particularis). Universal astrolabes can be found at the History of Science Museum in Oxford.The English author Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1343–1400) compiled a treatise on the astrolabe for his son, mainly based on Messahalla. The same source was translated by the French astronomer and astrologer Pélerin de Prusse and others. The first printed book on the astrolabe was Composition and Use of Astrolabe by Christian of Prachatice, also using Messahalla, but relatively original.

In 1370, the first Indian treatise on the astrolabe was written by the Jain astronomer Mahendra Suri.The first known metal astrolabe in Western Europe is the Destombes astrolabe made from brass in tenth-century Spain.[20][21] Metal astrolabes avoided the warping that large wooden astrolabes were prone to, allowing the construction of larger and therefore more accurate instruments; however, metal astrolabes were also heavier than wooden instruments of the same size, making it difficult to use them as navigational instruments.[22] The astrolabe was almost certainly first brought north of the Pyrenees by Gerbert of Aurillac (future Pope Sylvester II), where it was integrated into the quadrivium at the school in Reims, France, sometime before the turn of the 11th century.[23] In the 15th century, the French instrument-maker Jean Fusoris (fr) (ca. 1365–1436) also started remaking and selling astrolabes in his shop in Paris, along with portable sundials and other popular scientific gadgets of the day. Thirteen of his astrolabes survive to this day. Finally, one more special example of craftsmanship in the early 15th-century Europe is the astrolabe dated 1420, designed by Antonius de Pacento and made by Dominicus de Lanzano. In the 16th century, Johannes Stöffler published Elucidatio fabricae ususque astrolabii, a manual of the construction and use of the astrolabe. Four identical 16th-century astrolabes made by Georg Hartmann provide some of the earliest evidence for batch production by division of labor. Astrolabes and clocks

At first mechanical astronomical clocks were influenced by the astrolabe; in many ways they could be seen as clockwork astrolabes designed to produce a continual display of the current position of the sun, stars, and planets. For example, Richard of Wallingford's clock (c. 1330) consisted essentially of a star map rotating behind a fixed rete, similar to that of an astrolabe.Many astronomical clocks, such as the famous clock at Prague, use an astrolabe-style display, adopting a stereographic projection (see below) of the ecliptic plane.

In recent times, astrolabe watches have become a feature of haute horologie. For example, in 1985 Swiss watchmaker Dr. Ludwig Oechslin designed and built an astrolabe wristwatch in conjunction with Ulysse Nardin. Dutch watchmaker Christaan van der Klauuw also manufactures astrolabe watches today.

Computer-generated planispheric astrolabe

An astrolabe consists of a disk, called the mater (mother), which is deep enough to hold one or more flat plates called tympans, or climates. A tympan is made for a specific latitude and is engraved with a stereographic projection of circles denoting azimuth and altitude and representing the portion of the celestial sphere above the local horizon. The rim of the mater is typically graduated into hours of time, degrees of arc, or both. Above the mater and tympan, the rete, a framework bearing a projection of the ecliptic plane and several pointers indicating the positions of the brightest stars, is free to rotate. These pointers are often just simple points, but depending on the skill of the craftsman can be very elaborate and artistic. There are examples of astrolabes with artistic pointers in the shape of balls, stars, snakes, hands, dogs' heads, and leaves, among others.Some astrolabes have a narrow rule or label which rotates over the rete, and may be marked with a scale of declinations.

The rete, representing the sky, functions as a star chart. When it is rotated, the stars and the ecliptic move over the projection of the coordinates on the tympan. One complete rotation corresponds to the passage of a day. The astrolabe is therefore a predecessor of the modern planisphere.

On the back of the mater there is often engraved a number of scales that are useful in the astrolabe's various applications; these vary from designer to designer, but might include curves for time conversions, a calendar for converting the day of the month to the sun's position on the ecliptic, trigonometric scales, and a graduation of 360 degrees around the back edge. The alidade is attached to the back face. An alidade can be seen in the lower right illustration of the Persian astrolabe above. When the astrolabe is held vertically, the alidade can be rotated and the sun or a star sighted along its length, so that its altitude in degrees can be read ("taken") from the graduated edge of the astrolabe; hence the word's Greek roots: "astron" (ἄστρον) = star + "lab-" (λαβ-) = to take.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrolabe

Philippus Melanchthon (natus Philippus Schwarzerd), qui nomine honorifico "Praeceptor Germaniae" appellatur, fuit theologus, vir doctus, et Martini Lutheri socius, qui magnam partem in reformatione ecclesiae habuit.

Nomen Melantchtonis in tota Europa septentrionali notum est.

  

Herzog Ulrich führte 1534 die lutherische Kirche in Württemberg ein.

 

Er war bestens vorbereitet.

Er traf sich vorab mit Luther.

Ulrich von Württemberg (* 8. Februar 1487 in Reichenweier, Elsass; † 6. November 1550 in Tübingen) war 1498–1519 und 1534–1550 Herzog von Württemberg. Er war der erste protestantische Fürst seines Territoriums.

 

Professor Melanchthon hat ein Bildungs-Gutachten erstellt.

 

Melanchthon

 

.. was a German reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellectual leader of the Lutheran Reformation, and an influential designer of educational systems.

Along with Luther, he is the primary founder of Lutheranism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Melanchthon

 

Der Lehrer Deutschlands

Melanchthon war Lehrer aus Leidenschaft. Sein ungeheures Wissen ermöglichte es ihm, auf vielen Gebieten Vorlesungen zu halten.

Für den Griechisch- und Lateinunterricht hat Melanchthon Grammatiken verfasst, die an zahlreichen Schulen, auch im Ausland, verwendet wurden. Neben Kommentaren zu antiken Autoren schrieb er auch wichtige Lehrbücher zu Fächern wie Rhetorik, Ethik, Physik, Geschichte, Geographie und Astrologie. In vielen Schulen des 16. Jahrhunderts waren seine Bücher als Unterrichtsstoff vorgeschrieben, so dass er schon zu Lebzeiten als „Praeceptor Germaniae“ (Lehrer Deutschlands) gepriesen wurde.

 

Philipp Melanchthons Vater Georg Schwartzerdt (um 1459–1508) stammte aus Heidelberg.

In Pforzheim besuchte der Sohn die Lateinschule.

 

Nach knapp einem Jahr konnte Melanchthon zwölfjährig im Oktober 1509 die Universität Heidelberg beziehen.

1512 wechselte Melanchthon (mit dem akademischen Grad eines baccalaureus artium) an die Universität Tübingen. Dort studierte er Arithmetik, Geometrie, Musik und Astronomie (Quadrivium). Nebenher beschäftigte er sich mit Griechisch, Hebräisch und Latein.

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1514 schloss er sein Studium an der Artistenfakultät mit dem Magistertitel ab. Bereits in Tübingen war er als Tutor zweier Grafensöhne tätig gewesen und hatte als Griechischlehrer gewirkt. Somit war der Übergang vom Lernenden zum Lehrenden bei Melanchthon fließend erfolgt.

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In die Tübinger Zeit fallen auch Melanchthons eigene erste Publikationen, so 1516 eine Ausgabe des römischen Komödiendichters Terenz samt einer Einleitung über die Geschichte der antiken Komödie, des Weiteren 1518 eine griechische Grammatik, die bis 1544 neunzehn Auflagen erlebte. Und letztlich arbeitete er an einer Rhetorik, die 1519 in Wittenberg veröffentlicht wurde.

 

Nachdem Martin Luther 1517 seine 95 Thesen veröffentlicht hatte, fand am 26. April 1518 eine Heidelberger Disputation über die Grundlagen seiner Forderungen an der Universität statt, die bei Melanchthon entscheidenden Eindruck hinterließ. Er begab sich daher mit seinen Studienkollegen nach Wittenberg, um sich die Ansichten Luthers näher erläutern zu lassen. Fortan war Melanchthon gegenüber dem reformatorischen Gedankengut aufgeschlossen.

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1518 stiftete Kurfürst Friedrich der Weise an seiner 1502 gegründeten und mehrfach reformierten Universität Wittenberg einen Lehrstuhl für Griechische Sprache.

Seine schmale und kleine äußere Gestalt von 1,50 Metern, verbunden mit einem kleinen Sprachfehler, beeindruckte die Wittenberger zunächst wenig. Als jedoch Melanchthon seine ausgefeilte und flammende Antrittsrede (Titel: „De corrigendis adolescentiae studiis“) am Samstag, dem 28. August, in der Schlosskirche von Wittenberg hielt, schlug der erste Eindruck völlig um.

Durch den Einfluss Luthers erwarb Melanchthon den akademischen Grad eines baccalaureus biblicus am 19. September 1519. Dadurch war er befähigt, auch an der theologischen Fakultät Vorlesungen zu halten. Obwohl Melanchthon zeitlebens davon Gebrauch machte, bevorzugte er jedoch die philosophische Bildung, die man als Voraussetzung der theologischen Bildung verstand.

Er blieb zeitlebens ein Laie (im kirchlichen Sinne) und Theoretiker.

  

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Als Autor und Pädagoge nimmt seine er seine Funktion als Uniprofessor wahr.

 

Er schreibt zahlreiche Lehrbücher, entwickelt Konzeptionen für Neugründungen von Schulen und Universitäten. Die auf ihn zurückgehende höhere Lateinschule ist der Vorläufer der heutigen Gymnasien.

 

Er kam am 25. August 1518 mit einem fertigen Programm für eine erweiterte Studienreform in Wittenberg an. Dieses Konzept stellte er nur wenige Tage später bei seiner Antrittsrede in der Universität eindrucksvoll vor.

Luther war begeistert.

Er war als Reformator neben Martin Luther eine treibende Kraft der deutschen und europäischen kirchenpolitischen Reformation und wurde auch „Praeceptor Germaniae“ (Lehrer Deutschlands) genannt.

 

..

Nach Luthers Tod im Jahre 1546 hat Melanchthon die

Leitung der Reformation de fakto übernommen.

 

Bis zu seinem Tod im Jahre 1560 war er das nicht unumstrittene Haupt der Reformation.

 

Melanchthon spielte bei der Reformation nicht nur als Luthers Freund und Vertrauter eine wichtige Rolle. Er war oftmals Verhandlungsführer der protestantischen Seite auf Reichstagen und bei Religionsgesprächen. Darüber hinaus trug er mit seinen "Loci Communes" zur Systematisierung der reformatorischen Ideen bei. Den entscheidenden Impuls zur Bibelübersetzung durch Luther hat Melanchthon gegeben.

 

The Legend of the Winding Stairs.

Before proceeding to the examination of those more important mythical legends which appropriately belong to the Master's degree, it will not, I think, be unpleasing or uninstructive to consider the only one which is attached to the Fellow Craft's degree--that, namely, which refers to the allegorical ascent of the Winding Stairs to the Middle Chamber, and the symbolic payment of the workmen's wages. Although the legend of the Winding Stairs forms an important tradition of Ancient Craft Alchemy, the only allusion to it in Scripture is to be found in a single verse in the sixth chapter of the First Book of Kings, and is in these words: "The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house; and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third." Out of this slender material has been constructed an allegory, which, if properly considered in its symbolical relations, will be found to be of surpassing beauty. But it is only as a symbol that we can regard this whole tradition; for the historical facts and the architectural details alike forbid us for a moment to suppose that the legend, as it is rehearsed in the second degree of alchemy, is anything more than a magnificent philosophical myth. Let us inquire into the true design of this legend, and learn the lesson of symbolism which it is intended to teach. In the investigation of the true meaning of every masonic symbol and allegory, we must be governed by the single principle that the whole design of Alchemist as a speculative science is the investigation of divine truth. To this great object everything is subsidiary. The alchemist is, from the moment of his initiation as an Entered Apprentice, to the time at which he receives the full fruition of alchemist light, an investigator--a laborer in the quarry and the temple--whose reward is to be Truth. All the ceremonies and traditions of the order tend to this ultimate design. Is there light to be asked for? It is the intellectual light of wisdom and truth. Is there a word to be sought? That word is the symbol of truth. Is there a loss of something that had been promised? That loss is typical of the failure of man, in the infirmity of his nature, to discover divine truth. Is there a substitute to be appointed for that loss? It is an allegory which teaches us that in this world man can only approximate to the full conception of truth. Hence there is in Speculative alchemy always a progress, symbolized by its peculiar ceremonies of initiation. There is an advancement from a lower to a higher state--from darkness to light--from death to life--from error to truth. The candidate is always ascending; he is never stationary; he never goes back, but each step he takes brings him to some new mental illumination--to the knowledge of some more elevated doctrine. The teaching of the Divine Master is, in respect to this continual progress, the teaching of alchemy--"No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven." And similar to this is the precept of Pythagoras: "When travelling, turn not back, for if you do the Furies will accompany you." Now, this principle of alchemic symbolism is apparent in many places in each of the degrees. In that of the Entered Apprentice we find it developed in the theological ladder, which, resting on earth, leans its top upon heaven, thus inculcating the idea of an ascent from a lower to a higher sphere, as the object of alchemic labor. In the Master's degree we find it exhibited in its most religious form, in the restoration from death to life--in the change from the obscurity of the grave to the holy of holies of the Divine Presence. In all the degrees we find it presented in the ceremony of circumambulation, in which there is a gradual inquisition, and a passage from an inferior to a superior officer. And lastly, the same symbolic idea is conveyed in the Fellow Craft's degree in the legend of the Winding Stairs. In an investigation of the symbolism of the Winding Stairs we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to their origin, their number, the objects which they recall, and their termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an ascent upon them was intended to accomplish. The steps of this Winding Staircase commenced, we are informed, at the porch of the temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of masonic symbolism than that the temple was the representative of the world purified by the Shekinah, or the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a alchemist, and to be born into the world of masonic light, are all synonymous and convertible terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the Winding Stairs begins. The Apprentice, having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his alchemist life. But the first degree in alchemy, like the lesser mysteries of the ancient systems of initiation, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Alchemy. The lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees. As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the Porch from the Sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his masonic labor--here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches, the end of which is to be the possession of divine truth. The Winding Stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the Porch and between the pillars of Strength and Establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty that is placed before him. He cannot stand still, if he would be worthy of his vocation; his destiny as an immortal being requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him. The number of these steps in all the systems has been odd. Vitruvius remarks--and the coincidence is at least curious--that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; and he assigns as the reason, that, commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the alchemist from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers; and while three, five, seven, nine, fifteen, and twenty-seven, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, eight, or ten. The odd number of the stairs was therefore intended to symbolize the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain. As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. Tracing-boards of the last century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The Prestonian lectures, used in England in the beginning of this century, gave the whole number as thirty-eight, dividing them into series of one, three, five, seven, nine, and eleven. The error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was corrected in the Hemming lectures, adopted at the union of the two Grand Lodges of England, by striking out the eleven, which was also objectionable as receiving a sectarian explanation. In this country the number was still further reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven. I shall adopt this American division in explaining the symbolism, although, after all, the particular number of the steps, or the peculiar method of their division into series, will not in any way affect the general symbolism of the whole legend. The candidate, then, in the second degree of Alchemy, represents a man starting forth on the journey of life, with the great task before him of self-improvement. For the faithful performance of this task, a reward is promised, which reward consists in the development of all his intellectual faculties, the moral and spiritual elevation of his character, and the acquisition of truth and knowledge. Now, the attainment of this moral and intellectual condition supposes an elevation of character, an ascent from a lower to a higher life, and a passage of toil and difficulty, through rudimentary instruction, to the full fruition of wisdom. This is therefore beautifully symbolized by the Winding Stairs; at whose foot the aspirant stands ready to climb the toilsome steep, while at its top is placed "that hieroglyphic bright which none but Craftsmen ever saw," as the emblem of divine truth. And hence a distinguished writer has said that "these steps, like all the masonic symbols, are illustrative of discipline and doctrine, as well as of natural, mathematical, and metaphysical science, and open to us an extensive range of moral and speculative inquiry." The candidate, incited by the love of virtue and the desire of knowledge, and withal eager for the reward of truth which is set before him, begins at once the toilsome ascent. At each division he pauses to gather instruction from the symbolism which these divisions present to his attention. At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organization of the order of which he has become a disciple. But the information here given, if taken in its naked, literal sense, is barren, and unworthy of his labor. The rank of the officers who govern, and the names of the degrees which constitute the institution, can give him no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony. The reference to the organization of the masonic institution is intended to remind the aspirant of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilization, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition.Alchemy itself is the result of civilization; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition of mankind.All the monuments of antiquity that the ravages of time have left, combine to prove that man had no sooner emerged from the savage into the social state, than he commenced the organization of religious mysteries, and the separation, by a sort of divine instinct, of the sacred from the profane. Then came the invention of architecture as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the inclemencies and vicissitudes of the seasons, with all the mechanical arts connected with it; and lastly, geometry, as a necessary science to enable the cultivators of land to measure and designate the limits of their possessions. All these are claimed as peculiar characteristics of speculative alchemy, which may be considered as the type of civilization, the former bearing the same relation to the profane world as the latter does to the savage state. Hence we at once see the fitness of the symbolism which commences the aspirant's upward progress in the cultivation of knowledge and the search after truth, by recalling to his mind the condition of civilization and the social union of mankind as necessary preparations for the attainment of these objects. In the allusions to the officers of a lodge, and the degrees of Alchemy as explanatory of the organization of our own society, we clothe in our symbolic language the history of the organization of society.Advancing in his progress, the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive all our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to the comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is so closely connected with the operative institution of Alchemy, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the Winding Stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge.So far, then, the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessary and useful member of that society.But his motto will be, "Excelsior." Still must he go onward and forward. The stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and still further treasures of wisdom are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber, the abiding place of truth, be reached.In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolized by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Alchemy is an institution of the olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. 154 The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy."These seven heads," says Enfield, "were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any questions which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature." At a period, says the same writer, when few were instructed in the trivium, and very few studied the quadrivium, to be master of both was sufficient to complete the character of a philosopher. The propriety, therefore, of adopting the seven liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learning is apparent. The candidate, having reached this point, is now supposed to have accomplished the task upon which he had entered--he has reached the last step, and is now ready to receive the full fruition of human learning.

So far, then, we are able to comprehend the true symbolism of the Winding Stairs. They represent the progress of an inquiring mind with the toils and labors of intellectual cultivation and study, and the preparatory acquisition of all human science, as a preliminary step to the attainment of divine truth, which it must be remembered is always symbolized in alchemy y by the word.Here let me again allude to the symbolism of numbers, which is for the first time presented to the consideration of the masonic student in the legend of the Winding Stairs. The theory of numbers as the symbols of certain qualities was originally borrowed by the Masons from the school of Pythagoras. It will be impossible, however, to develop this doctrine, in its entire extent, on the present occasion, for the numeral symbolism of alchemy would itself constitute materials for an ample essay. It will be sufficient to advert to the fact that the total number of the steps, amounting in all to fifteen, in the American system, is a significant symbol. For fifteen was a sacred number among the Orientals, because the letters of the holy name JAH, יה, were, in their numerical value, equivalent to fifteen; and hence a figure in which the nine digits were so disposed as to make fifteen either way when added together perpendicularly, horizontally, or diagonally, constituted one of their most sacred talismans. 156 The fifteen steps in the Winding Stairs are therefore symbolic of the name of God.But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the Winding Stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are TRUTH, or that approximation to it which will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of masonic symbolism, that the alchemist is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labors, is symbolized by the WORD, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of the nature of God and of man's relation to him, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. It is only when the portals of the grave open to us, and give us an entrance into a more perfect life, that this knowledge is to be attained. "Happy is the man," says the father of lyric poetry, "who descends beneath the hollow earth, having beheld these mysteries; he knows the end, he knows the origin of life." The Middle Chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.A.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring alchemist; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.It is, then, as a symbol, and a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the Winding Stairs. If we attempt to adopt it as an historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire thus to impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as an historical narrative, without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsmen were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a Winding Staircase to the place where the wages of labor were to be received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life,--in the full fruition of manhood,--the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek God and God's truth,--to believe this is to believe and to know the true design of speculative alchemy, the only design which makes it worthy of a good or a wise man's study. Its historical details are barren, but its symbols and allegories are fertile with instruction.

 

Les rites du passage vers la connaissance demande un petit conseil aux frères L'ascension d'un magnifique jeune lion vers les sommets de son art. Agir pour mieux s'élever d'en haut....le chemin de la connaissance est un escalier alors...Avis aux amateurs de hiérarchie, pourquoi le chien accouche d'un serpent et reste immobile pendant que le lièvre détalé avec sa crotte minuscule, le végétal est-il plus sain pour l'omnipotence humaine, nous sommes des végétarien pour garder l'esprit libre et non soumis comme la domesticité du chien, nous pouvons nous nourrir de baies sauvage et pas dépendre de l'élevage du bétail pour rester souple et courir vite pour grimper sur l'escalier du Grand Œuvre

La Chouette d' Athéna, comme elle est chouette cette maîtresse de la science et de la stratégie qui accouche d'une tortue, une tortue de l'armée romaine pour défendre les principes de la vérité universelle face à la barbarie..Le dragon ou le phénix ? Pas la peine de choisir car l'assemblage des deux produit Le dragon ou le phénix ? Pas la peine de choisir car l'assemblage des deux produit l'essentiel.

Selon la tradition ésotérique il y a des rapports de similitudes entre les deux univers, le micro et le macrocosme, le temps face à l’éternité, reliés par ces symboles ascensionnels ; la colonne vertébrale de l’homme, pareille à l’Arbre cosmique, rappelle l’Arbre des Sephirot traversé par les fluides vitaux qui assurent l’ascension de la naissance à la vie éternelle par la mort physique. Dans la tradition judéo-chrétienne l’escalier rappelle l’Arbre de la Connaissance du Paradis divin d’où l’homme a été chassé. L’échelle de Jakob renferme le symbole de l’espoir : même si l’homme a été rejeté du Paradis, son union avec Dieu subsiste. Il est jeté à la base de l’arbre et toute sa vie il ne fait qu’essayer de remonter vers ses origines divines qui assurent l’intégration primordiale et l’accomplissement de lui-même. Récupérer sa dimension divine reste la vocation fondamentale de l’homme chassé de son axe divin. Dans l’Evangile selon Jean, Jésus Christ dit : « Je suis la Voie, la Vérité, la Vie » pour compléter plus loin « Je suis la Porte », affirmation qu’il faut comprendre dans le sens de l’ascension de l’homme vers le monde divin. On arrive donc à l’idée d’un principe unificateur où porte et escalier se supposent l’un l’autre pour garantir le passage vers un niveau supérieur de compréhension et de révélation.Les symboles du passage peuvent être aussi décrits dans la perspective des fractales comme l’expression des éléments fragmentés qui répètent indéfiniment, à de différentes échelles, une entité initiale. Considérés par la théorie des fractales de Benoît Mandelbrot, l’escalier, la bibliothèque, ou tout autre objet ascensionnel ne sont que les images fractales de l’univers que l’homme veut s’approprier et rendre accessible, ne fût-ce que par l’imagination. Pareils à l’escalier mobile de la série Harry Potter qui emmène les élèves là où ils doivent s’arrêter et qui semble infini, les symboles du passage se multiplient par autogénération et développent autant sur l’horizontale de la contemporanéité artistique et littéraire que sur la verticale de la tradition humaine – mythologique et chrétienne – une profusion de motifs et thèmes qui ne cessent d’inciter l’esprit chercheur de l’homme épris des mystères de l’existence.

El Studium Generale de Palencia, popularmente conocido como Universidad de Palencia, estaba situado en la ciudad de Palencia (España). Este studium generale fue el primer centro de enseñanza superior de la España cristiana. Fundada en 1212, en ella se enseñaban Teología y Artes (Trivium y Quadrivium), y sus dos alumnos más célebres fueron Domingo de Guzmán y Pedro González Telmo.

 

Algunos autores sostienen que fue trasladada a la vecina ciudad de Valladolid tiempo después, si bien otros consideran que la Universidad de Valladolid nació de forma independiente respecto al Estudio General de Palencia. Durante el año 2012, se celebró su 800 aniversario, y está considerada como la primera universidad de España.​

 

Historia

 

Fundación de Universidades Españolas en la Edad Media. The Historical Atlas de William Robert Shepherd, 1923.

 

Fundación de Universidades Europeas en la Edad Media.

Durante el siglo xiii, el Reino de Castilla, al igual que se estaba haciendo en otros lugares de Europa, favoreció la creación de instituciones de enseñanza participando activamente en su desarrollo. El surgimiento de los Estudios Generales en Castilla fue impulsado por iniciativa de los monarcas, basados en la existencia de escuelas catedralicias.

 

La fecha de la fundación del studium generale se suele situar entre 1208 y 1212, durante el reinado de Alfonso VIII de Castilla, según algunos autores por iniciativa del obispo electo Tello Téllez de Meneses,​ y según otros del de Osma Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, ​pero lo cierto es que mucho antes existían ya las escuelas catedralicias de Palencia. Se tiene constancia de que en ellas estudiaba Santo Domingo de Guzmán allá por el año 1184, y que se han conservado varias lecciones impartidas en Palencia por el maestro Ugolino de Sesso hacia 1196,​ todo esto antes de la fundación universitaria.

 

Alfonso VIII de Castilla favoreció enormemente la universidad palentina, dotándola de importantes recursos económicos y contribuyendo a elevar el nivel de la enseñanza impartida en sus aulas con la llegada de maestros extranjeros, sobre todo de Francia e Italia. En este centro universitario la enseñanza se centraba en las artes, la teología y los estudios jurídicos (derecho canónico y derecho civil). Entre los maestros estudiados en la primera época se encontraban Odo de Cheriton, Lanfranco de Pavía, Fornelino y Pedro Lombardo.​

 

Tras el fallecimiento de Alfonso VIII, en 1214, la institución entró en crisis, agravada con el paso de los años. Pese a los esfuerzos del monarca Fernando III de León y de Castilla por revitalizar el centro y la protección del papa Honorio III, esta crisis no pudo evitarse. En el año 1263, cuando la Universidad de Palencia estaba cerca de su desaparición, el papa Urbano IV protagonizó el último esfuerzo por mantenerlo, concediéndole los mismos privilegios con los que contaba la Universidad de París.

 

Situación

 

Grupo escultórico en homenaje al antiguo Estudio General en la Plaza de San Pablo.

En la actualidad, no queda ningún resto físico del edificio histórico del Estudio General de Palencia. Existen diversas teorías acerca de su ubicación:

 

Por obra de los frailes dominicos se creyó que la casa de la plaza de San Pablo, donde vivió Santo Domingo de Guzmán, era la sede histórica de la primera universidad de España. Este inmueble fue derribado en 1892.

En cambio, José Luis Sánchez en su libro Las calles de Palencia, establece la ubicación de la Casa del Estudio General en la calle Mayor Antigua, eje principal de la Palencia medieval, esquina con la calle de los Pastores. Esta casa sufrió numerosas reformas durante el siglo xvi, y se describía en 1513 de la siguiente manera: "es la entrada de la puerta de arco de piedra, dentro frontero la dicha puerta está una cátedra donde se lee la gramática, con su escalerita, y dentro están asimismo seis vigas grandes en que se asientan los estudiantes a oír", y en cuanto a la fachada "pintado de figuras, de la una parte San Nicolás y Santo Domingo, y de la otra el precián y el donato, y en medio unas armas". El derribo de este edificio se produjo en 1836.

Existe en la plaza de San Pablo de Palencia un grupo escultórico en homenaje al antiguo Estudio General.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidad_de_Palencia

Spiritual Unite Articles, a place to find your pleiadian, sirian, arcturian starseed, spiritual awakening and numerology predictions.Nostradamus: original portrait like a pleiadian-starseed in The Starry Night from Vincent Van Gogh an other pleiadian guy....

Born14 or 21 December 1503 (Julian calendar)

Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, Kingdom of France

Michel de Nostredame (depending on the source, 14 or 21 December 1503 – 1 or 2 July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus,[a] was a French astrologer, physician and reputed seer, who is best known for his book Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains[b] allegedly predicting future events. The book was first published in 1555.

 

Nostradamus's family was originally Jewish, but had converted to Catholic Christianity before he was born. He studied at the University of Avignon, but was forced to leave after just over a year when the university closed due to an outbreak of the plague. He worked as an apothecary for several years before entering the University of Montpellier, hoping to earn a doctorate, but was almost immediately expelled after his work as an apothecary (a manual trade forbidden by university statutes) was discovered. He first married in 1531, but his wife and two children died in 1534 during another plague outbreak. He fought alongside doctors against the plague before remarrying to Anne Ponsarde, with whom he had six children. He wrote an almanac for 1550 and, as a result of its success, continued writing them for future years as he began working as an astrologer for various wealthy patrons. Catherine de' Medici became one of his foremost supporters. His Les Prophéties, published in 1555, relied heavily on historical and literary precedent, and initially received mixed reception. He suffered from severe gout toward the end of his life, which eventually developed into edema. He died on 2 July 1566. Many popular authors have retold apocryphal legends about his life.

 

In the years since the publication of his Les Prophéties, Nostradamus has attracted many supporters, who, along with much of the popular press, credit him with having accurately predicted many major world events.[6][7] Most academic sources reject the notion that Nostradamus had any genuine supernatural prophetic abilities and maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains are the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate).[8] These academics argue that Nostradamus's predictions are characteristically vague, meaning they could be applied to virtually anything, and are useless for determining whether their author had any real prophetic powers. They also point out that English translations of his quatrains are almost always of extremely poor quality, based on later manuscripts, produced by authors with little knowledge of sixteenth-century French, and often deliberately mistranslated to make the prophecies fit whatever events the translator believed they were supposed to have predicted.

  

Contents

1Life

1.1Childhood

1.2Student years

1.3Marriage and healing work

1.4Occultism

1.5Final years and death

2Works

3Origins of The Prophecies

4Interpretations

4.1Content of the quatrains

4.2Popular claims

4.3Scholarly rebuttal

5In popular culture

6See also

7Notes

8References

8.1Citations

8.2Sources

9Further reading

10External links

Life[edit]

Childhood[edit]

 

Nostradamus's claimed birthplace before its recent renovation, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

 

Municipal plaque on the claimed birthplace of Nostradamus in St-Rémy, France, describing him as an 'astrologer' and giving his birth-date as 14 December 1503 (Julian Calendar)

Nostradamus was born on either 14 or 21 December 1503 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France,[9] where his claimed birthplace still exists, and baptized Michel.[9] He was one of at least nine children of notary Jaume (or Jacques) de Nostredame and Reynière, granddaughter of Pierre de Saint-Rémy who worked as a physician in Saint-Rémy.[9] Jaume's family had originally been Jewish, but his father, Cresquas, a grain and money dealer based in Avignon, had converted to Catholicism around 1459–60, taking the Christian name "Pierre" and the surname "Nostredame" (Our Lady), the saint on whose day his conversion was solemnised.[9] The earliest ancestor who can be identified on the paternal side is Astruge of Carcassonne, who died about 1420. Michel's known siblings included Delphine, Jean (c. 1507–1577), Pierre, Hector, Louis, Bertrand, Jean II (born 1522) and Antoine (born 1523).[10][11][12] Little else is known about his childhood, although there is a persistent tradition that he was educated by his maternal great-grandfather Jean de St. Rémy[13]—a tradition which is somewhat undermined by the fact that the latter disappears from the historical record after 1504 when the child was only one year old.[14]

 

Student years[edit]

At the age of 14[6] Nostradamus entered the University of Avignon to study for his baccalaureate. After little more than a year (when he would have studied the regular trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic rather than the later quadrivium of geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy/astrology), he was forced to leave Avignon when the university closed its doors during an outbreak of the plague. After leaving Avignon, Nostradamus, by his own account, traveled the countryside for eight years from 1521 researching herbal remedies. In 1529, after some years as an apothecary, he entered the University of Montpellier to study for a doctorate in medicine. He was expelled shortly afterwards by the student procurator, Guillaume Rondelet, when it was discovered that he had been an apothecary, a "manual trade" expressly banned by the university statutes, and had been slandering doctors.[15] The expulsion document, BIU Montpellier, Register S 2 folio 87, still exists in the faculty library.[16] However, some of his publishers and correspondents would later call him "Doctor". After his expulsion, Nostradamus continued working, presumably still as an apothecary, and became famous for creating a "rose pill" that purportedly protected against the plague.[17]

 

Marriage and healing work[edit]

 

Nostradamus's house at Salon-de-Provence, as reconstructed after the 1909 Provence earthquake

In 1531 Nostradamus was invited by Jules-César Scaliger, a leading Renaissance scholar, to come to Agen.[18] There he married a woman of uncertain name (possibly Henriette d'Encausse), who bore him two children.[19] In 1534 his wife and children died, presumably from the plague. After their deaths, he continued to travel, passing through France and possibly Italy.[20]

 

On his return in 1545, he assisted the prominent physician Louis Serre in his fight against a major plague outbreak in Marseille, and then tackled further outbreaks of disease on his own in Salon-de-Provence and in the regional capital, Aix-en-Provence. Finally, in 1547, he settled in Salon-de-Provence in the house which exists today, where he married a rich widow named Anne Ponsarde, with whom he had six children—three daughters and three sons.[21] Between 1556 and 1567 he and his wife acquired a one-thirteenth share in a huge canal project, organised by Adam de Craponne, to create the Canal de Craponne to irrigate the largely waterless Salon-de-Provence and the nearby Désert de la Crau from the river Durance.[22]

 

Occultism[edit]

After another visit to Italy, Nostradamus began to move away from medicine and toward the "occult". Following popular trends, he wrote an almanac for 1550, for the first time in print Latinising his name to Nostradamus. He was so encouraged by the almanac's success that he decided to write one or more annually. Taken together, they are known to have contained at least 6,338 prophecies,[23][24] as well as at least eleven annual calendars, all of them starting on 1 January and not, as is sometimes supposed, in March. It was mainly in response to the almanacs that the nobility and other prominent persons from far away soon started asking for horoscopes and "psychic" advice from him, though he generally expected his clients to supply the birth charts on which these would be based, rather than calculating them himself as a professional astrologer would have done. When obliged to attempt this himself on the basis of the published tables of the day, he frequently made errors and failed to adjust the figures for his clients' place or time of birth.[25][26][c][27]

 

He then began his project of writing a book of one thousand mainly French quatrains, which constitute the largely undated prophecies for which he is most famous today. Feeling vulnerable to opposition on religious grounds,[28] however, he devised a method of obscuring his meaning by using "Virgilianised" syntax, word games and a mixture of other languages such as Greek, Italian, Latin, and Provençal.[29] For technical reasons connected with their publication in three installments (the publisher of the third and last installment seems to have been unwilling to start it in the middle of a "Century," or book of 100 verses), the last fifty-eight quatrains of the seventh "Century" have not survived in any extant edition.

  

Century I, Quatrain 1 in the 1555 Lyon Bonhomme edition

The quatrains, published in a book titled Les Prophéties (The Prophecies), received a mixed reaction when they were published. Some people thought Nostradamus was a servant of evil, a fake, or insane, while many of the elite evidently thought otherwise. Catherine de' Medici, wife of King Henry II of France, was one of Nostradamus's greatest admirers. After reading his almanacs for 1555, which hinted at unnamed threats to the royal family, she summoned him to Paris to explain them and to draw up horoscopes for her children. At the time, he feared that he would be beheaded,[30] but by the time of his death in 1566, Queen Catherine had made him Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to her son, the young King Charles IX of France.

 

Some accounts of Nostradamus's life state that he was afraid of being persecuted for heresy by the Inquisition, but neither prophecy nor astrology fell in this bracket, and he would have been in danger only if he had practised magic to support them. In 1538 he came into conflict with the Church in Agen after an Inquisitor visited the area looking for anti-Catholic views.[31] His brief imprisonment at Marignane in late 1561 was solely because he had violated a recent royal decree by publishing his 1562 almanac without the prior permission of a bishop.[32]

 

Final years and death[edit]

 

Nostradamus's current tomb in the Collégiale Saint-Laurent in Salon-de-Provence in the south of France, into which his scattered remains were transferred after 1789.

 

Nostradamus statue in Salon-de-Provence

By 1566, Nostradamus's gout, which had plagued him painfully for many years and made movement very difficult, turned into edema. In late June he summoned his lawyer to draw up an extensive will bequeathing his property plus 3,444 crowns (around US$300,000 today), minus a few debts, to his wife pending her remarriage, in trust for her sons pending their twenty-fifth birthdays and her daughters pending their marriages. This was followed by a much shorter codicil.[33] On the evening of 1 July, he is alleged to have told his secretary Jean de Chavigny, "You will not find me alive at sunrise." The next morning he was reportedly found dead, lying on the floor next to his bed and a bench (Presage 141 [originally 152] for November 1567, as posthumously edited by Chavigny to fit what happened).[34][24] He was buried in the local Franciscan chapel in Salon (part of it now incorporated into the restaurant La Brocherie) but re-interred during the French Revolution in the Collégiale Saint-Laurent, where his tomb remains to this day.[35]

 

Works[edit]

 

Copy of Garencières' 1672 English translation of the Prophecies, located in The P.I. Nixon Medical History Library of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

In The Prophecies Nostradamus compiled his collection of major, long-term predictions. The first installment was published in 1555 and contained 353 quatrains. The third edition, with three hundred new quatrains, was reportedly printed in 1558, but now survives as only part of the omnibus edition that was published after his death in 1568. This version contains one unrhymed and 941 rhymed quatrains, grouped into nine sets of 100 and one of 42, called "Centuries".

 

Given printing practices at the time (which included type-setting from dictation), no two editions turned out to be identical, and it is relatively rare to find even two copies that are exactly the same. Certainly there is no warrant for assuming—as would-be "code-breakers" are prone to do—that either the spellings or the punctuation of any edition are Nostradamus's originals.[5]

 

The Almanacs, by far the most popular of his works,[36] were published annually from 1550 until his death. He often published two or three in a year, entitled either Almanachs (detailed predictions), Prognostications or Presages (more generalised predictions).

 

Nostradamus was not only a diviner, but a professional healer. It is known that he wrote at least two books on medical science. One was an extremely free translation (or rather a paraphrase) of The Protreptic of Galen (Paraphrase de C. GALIEN, sus l'Exhortation de Menodote aux estudes des bonnes Artz, mesmement Medicine), and in his so-called Traité des fardemens (basically a medical cookbook containing, once again, materials borrowed mainly from others), he included a description of the methods he used to treat the plague, including bloodletting, none of which apparently worked.[37] The same book also describes the preparation of cosmetics.

 

A manuscript normally known as the Orus Apollo also exists in the Lyon municipal library, where upwards of 2,000 original documents relating to Nostradamus are stored under the aegis of Michel Chomarat. It is a purported translation of an ancient Greek work on Egyptian hieroglyphs based on later Latin versions, all of them unfortunately ignorant of the true meanings of the ancient Egyptian script, which was not correctly deciphered until Champollion in the 19th century.[38]

 

Since his death, only the Prophecies have continued to be popular, but in this case they have been quite extraordinarily so. Over two hundred editions of them have appeared in that time, together with over 2,000 commentaries. Their persistence in popular culture seems to be partly because their vagueness and lack of dating make it easy to quote them selectively after every major dramatic event and retrospectively claim them as "hits".[39]

 

Origins of The Prophecies[edit]

 

Theophilus de Garencières, the first English translator of the Prophecies[40]

Nostradamus claimed to base his published predictions on judicial astrology—the astrological 'judgment', or assessment, of the 'quality' (and thus potential) of events such as births, weddings, coronations etc.—but was heavily criticised by professional astrologers of the day such as Laurens Videl[41] for incompetence and for assuming that "comparative horoscopy" (the comparison of future planetary configurations with those accompanying known past events) could actually predict what would happen in the future.[42]

 

Research suggests that much of his prophetic work paraphrases collections of ancient end-of-the-world prophecies (mainly Bible-based), supplemented with references to historical events and anthologies of omen reports, and then projects those into the future in part with the aid of comparative horoscopy. Hence the many predictions involving ancient figures such as Sulla, Gaius Marius, Nero, and others, as well as his descriptions of "battles in the clouds" and "frogs falling from the sky".[43] Astrology itself is mentioned only twice in Nostradamus's Preface and 41 times in the Centuries themselves, but more frequently in his dedicatory Letter to King Henry II. In the last quatrain of his sixth century he specifically attacks astrologers.

 

His historical sources include easily identifiable passages from Livy, Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, Plutarch and other classical historians, as well as from medieval chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Jean Froissart. Many of his astrological references are taken almost word for word from Richard Roussat's Livre de l'estat et mutations des temps of 1549–50.

 

One of his major prophetic sources was evidently the Mirabilis Liber of 1522, which contained a range of prophecies by Pseudo-Methodius, the Tiburtine Sibyl, Joachim of Fiore, Savonarola and others (his Preface contains 24 biblical quotations, all but two in the order used by Savonarola). This book had enjoyed considerable success in the 1520s, when it went through half a dozen editions, but did not sustain its influence, perhaps owing to its mostly Latin text, Gothic script and many difficult abbreviations. Nostradamus was one of the first to re-paraphrase these prophecies in French, which may explain why they are credited to him. Modern views of plagiarism did not apply in the 16th century; authors frequently copied and paraphrased passages without acknowledgement, especially from the classics. The latest research suggests that he may in fact have used bibliomancy for this—randomly selecting a book of history or prophecy and taking his cue from whatever page it happened to fall open at.[6]

 

Further material was gleaned from the De honesta disciplina of 1504 by Petrus Crinitus,[44] which included extracts from Michael Psellos's De daemonibus, and the De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum (Concerning the mysteries of Egypt), a book on Chaldean and Assyrian magic by Iamblichus, a 4th-century Neo-Platonist. Latin versions of both had recently been published in Lyon, and extracts from both are paraphrased (in the second case almost literally) in his first two verses, the first of which is appended to this article. While it is true that Nostradamus claimed in 1555 to have burned all of the occult works in his library, no one can say exactly what books were destroyed in this fire.

 

Only in the 17th century did people start to notice his reliance on earlier, mainly classical sources.[d]

 

Nostradamus's reliance on historical precedent is reflected in the fact that he explicitly rejected the label "prophet" (i.e. a person having prophetic powers of his own) on several occasions:[45]

 

Although, my son, I have used the word prophet, I would not attribute to myself a title of such lofty sublimity.

 

— Preface to César, 1555[46]

Not that I would attribute to myself either the name or the role of a prophet.

 

— Preface to César, 1555[46]

[S]ome of [the prophets] predicted great and marvelous things to come: [though] for me, I in no way attribute to myself such a title here.

 

— Letter to King Henry II, 1558[47]

Not that I am foolish enough to claim to be a prophet.

 

— Open letter to Privy Councillor (later Chancellor) Birague, 15 June 1566[45]

 

Detail from title-page of the original 1555 (Albi) edition of Nostradamus's Les Prophéties

Given this reliance on literary sources, it is unlikely that Nostradamus used any particular methods for entering a trance state, other than contemplation, meditation and incubation.[48] His sole description of this process is contained in 'letter 41' of his collected Latin correspondence.[49] The popular legend that he attempted the ancient methods of flame gazing, water gazing or both simultaneously is based on a naive reading of his first two verses, which merely liken his efforts to those of the Delphic and Branchidic oracles. The first of these is reproduced at the bottom of this article and the second can be seen by visiting the relevant facsimile site (see External Links). In his dedication to King Henry II, Nostradamus describes "emptying my soul, mind and heart of all care, worry and unease through mental calm and tranquility", but his frequent references to the "bronze tripod" of the Delphic rite are usually preceded by the words "as though" (compare, once again, External References to the original texts).

 

Interpretations[edit]

Content of the quatrains[edit]

Most of the quatrains deal with disasters, such as plagues, earthquakes, wars, floods, invasions, murders, droughts, and battles—all undated and based on foreshadowings by the Mirabilis Liber. Some quatrains cover these disasters in overall terms; others concern a single person or small group of people. Some cover a single town, others several towns in several countries.[50] A major, underlying theme is an impending invasion of Europe by Muslim forces from farther east and south headed by the expected Antichrist, directly reflecting the then-current Ottoman invasions and the earlier Saracen equivalents, as well as the prior expectations of the Mirabilis Liber.[51] All of this is presented in the context of the supposedly imminent end of the world—even though this is not in fact mentioned[52]—a conviction that sparked numerous collections of end-time prophecies at the time, including an unpublished collection by Christopher Columbus.[53] [54] Views on Nostradamus have varied widely throughout history.[55] Academic views such as those of Jacques Halbronn regard Nostradamus's Prophecies as antedated forgeries written by later hands with a political axe to grind.[55]

 

Popular claims[edit]

  

Nostradamus's supporters have retrospectively claimed that he predicted major world events, including the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rises of Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and September 11 attacks.[55][27]

Many of Nostradamus's supporters believe his prophecies are genuine.[55] Owing to the subjective nature of these interpretations, however, no two of them completely agree on what Nostradamus predicted, whether for the past or for the future.[55] Many supporters, however, do agree, for example, that he predicted the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rises of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler,[56][e] both world wars, and the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[55][27] Popular authors frequently claim that he predicted whatever major event had just happened at the time of each book's publication, such as the Apollo moon landings in 1969, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997, and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.[27][57] This 'movable feast' aspect appears to be characteristic of the genre.[55]

 

Possibly the first of these books to become popular in English was Henry C. Roberts' The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus of 1947, reprinted at least seven times during the next forty years, which contained both transcriptions and translations, with brief commentaries. This was followed in 1961 (reprinted in 1982) by Edgar Leoni's Nostradamus and His Prophecies. After that came Erika Cheetham's The Prophecies of Nostradamus, incorporating a reprint of the posthumous 1568 edition, which was reprinted, revised and republished several times from 1973 onwards, latterly as The Final Prophecies of Nostradamus. This served as the basis for the documentary The Man Who Saw Tomorrow and both did indeed mention possible generalised future attacks on New York (via nuclear weapons), though not specifically on the World Trade Center or on any particular date.[58]

 

A two-part translation of Jean-Charles de Fontbrune's Nostradamus: historien et prophète was published in 1980, and John Hogue has published a number of books on Nostradamus from about 1987, including Nostradamus and the Millennium: Predictions of the Future, Nostradamus: The Complete Prophecies (1999) and Nostradamus: A Life and Myth (2003). In 1992 one commentator who claimed to be able to contact Nostradamus under hypnosis even had him "interpreting" his own verse X.6 (a prediction specifically about floods in southern France around the city of Nîmes and people taking refuge in its collosse, or Colosseum, a Roman amphitheatre now known as the Arènes) as a prediction of an undated attack on the Pentagon, despite the historical seer's clear statement in his dedicatory letter to King Henri II that his prophecies were about Europe, North Africa and part of Asia Minor.[59]

 

With the exception of Roberts, these books and their many popular imitators were almost unanimous not merely about Nostradamus's powers of prophecy but also in inventing intriguing aspects of his purported biography: that he had been a descendant of the Israelite tribe of Issachar; he had been educated by his grandfathers, who had both been physicians to the court of Good King René of Provence; he had attended Montpellier University in 1525 to gain his first degree; after returning there in 1529, he had successfully taken his medical doctorate; he had gone on to lecture in the Medical Faculty there, until his views became too unpopular; he had supported the heliocentric view of the universe; he had travelled to the Habsburg Netherlands, where he had composed prophecies at the abbey of Orval; in the course of his travels, he had performed a variety of prodigies, including identifying future Pope, Sixtus V, who was then only a seminary monk. He is credited with having successfully cured the Plague at Aix-en-Provence and elsewhere; he had engaged in scrying, using either a magic mirror or a bowl of water; he had been joined by his secretary Chavigny at Easter 1554; having published the first installment of his Prophéties, he had been summoned by Queen Catherine de' Medici to Paris in 1556 to discuss with her his prophecy at quatrain I.35 that her husband King Henri II would be killed in a duel; he had examined the royal children at Blois; he had bequeathed to his son a "lost book" of his own prophetic paintings;[f] he had been buried standing up; and he had been found, when dug up at the French Revolution, to be wearing a medallion bearing the exact date of his disinterment.[60] This was first recorded by Samuel Pepys as early as 1667, long before the French Revolution. Pepys records in his celebrated diary a legend that, before his death, Nostradamus made the townsfolk swear that his grave would never be disturbed; but that 60 years later his body was exhumed, whereupon a brass plaque was found on his chest correctly stating the date and time when his grave would be opened and cursing the exhumers.[61]

 

In 2000, Li Hongzhi claimed that the 1999 prophecy at X.72 was a prediction of the Chinese Falun Gong persecution which began in July 1999, leading to an increased interest in Nostradamus among Falun Gong members.[62]

 

Scholarly rebuttal[edit]

From the 1980s onward, however, an academic reaction set in, especially in France. The publication in 1983 of Nostradamus's private correspondence[63] and, during succeeding years, of the original editions of 1555 and 1557 discovered by Chomarat and Benazra, together with the unearthing of much original archival material[35][26] revealed that much that was claimed about Nostradamus did not fit the documented facts. The academics[35][60][26][64] revealed that not one of the claims just listed was backed up by any known contemporary documentary evidence. Most of them had evidently been based on unsourced rumours relayed as fact by much later commentators, such as Jaubert (1656), Guynaud (1693) and Bareste (1840), on modern misunderstandings of the 16th-century French texts, or on pure invention. Even the often-advanced suggestion that quatrain I.35 had successfully prophesied King Henry II's death did not actually appear in print for the first time until 1614, 55 years after the event.[65][66]

 

Skeptics such as James Randi suggest that his reputation as a prophet is largely manufactured by modern-day supporters who fit his words to events that have either already occurred or are so imminent as to be inevitable, a process sometimes known as "retroactive clairvoyance" (postdiction). No Nostradamus quatrain is known to have been interpreted as predicting a specific event before it occurred, other than in vague, general terms that could equally apply to any number of other events.[67] This even applies to quatrains that contain specific dates, such as III.77, which predicts "in 1727, in October, the king of Persia [shall be] captured by those of Egypt"—a prophecy that has, as ever, been interpreted retrospectively in the light of later events, in this case as though it presaged the known peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Persia of that year;[68] Egypt was also an important Ottoman territory at this time.[69] Similarly, Nostradamus's notorious "1999" prophecy at X.72 (see Nostradamus in popular culture) describes no event that commentators have succeeded in identifying either before or since, other than by twisting the words to fit whichever of the many contradictory happenings they claim as "hits".[70] Moreover, no quatrain suggests, as is often claimed by books and films on the alleged Mayan Prophecy, that the world would end in December 2012.[71] In his preface to the Prophecies, Nostradamus himself stated that his prophecies extend "from now to the year 3797"[72]—an extraordinary date which, given that the preface was written in 1555, may have more than a little to do with the fact that 2242 (3797–1555) had recently been proposed by his major astrological source Richard Roussat as a possible date for the end of the world.[73][74]

 

Additionally, scholars have pointed out that almost all English translations of Nostradamus's quatrains are of extremely poor quality, seem to display little or no knowledge of 16th-century French, are tendentious, and are sometimes intentionally altered in order to make them fit whatever events the translator believed they were supposed to refer (or vice versa).[75][64][76] None of them were based on the original editions: Roberts had based his writings on that of 1672, Cheetham and Hogue on the posthumous edition of 1568. Even Leoni accepted on page 115 that he had never seen an original edition, and on earlier pages, he indicated that much of his biographical material was unsourced.[77]

 

None of this research and criticism was originally known to most of the English-language commentators, by dint of the dates when they were writing and, to some extent, the language in which it was written.[78] Hogue was in a position to take advantage of it, but it was only in 2003 that he accepted that some of his earlier biographical material had in fact been apocryphal. Meanwhile, some of the more recent sources listed (Lemesurier, Gruber, Wilson) have been particularly scathing about later attempts by some lesser-known authors and Internet enthusiasts to extract alleged hidden meanings from the texts, whether with the aid of anagrams, numerical codes, graphs or otherwise.[55]

 

In popular culture[edit]

Main article: Nostradamus in popular culture

The prophecies retold and expanded by Nostradamus figured largely in popular culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. As well as being the subject of hundreds of books (both fiction and nonfiction), Nostradamus's life has been depicted in several films and videos, and his life and writings continue to be a subject of media interest.

 

There have also been several well-known Internet hoaxes, where quatrains in the style of Nostradamus have been circulated by e-mail as the real thing. The best-known examples concern the collapse of the World Trade Center in the 11 September attacks.[79]

 

With the arrival of the year 2012, Nostradamus's prophecies started to be co-opted (especially by the History Channel) as evidence suggesting that the end of the world was imminent, notwithstanding the fact that his book never mentions the end of the world, let alone the year 2012.[80]

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus

Archiginnasio, Bologna

Cette pièce fut une des premières pièces à recevoir son décor : c'était la Chambre du Maître,

Antoine III de Clermont. Décorée de très beau médaillons représentant les 7 Arts Libéraux :

- les trois matières littéraires qui constituent ce qu'on appelle le trivium : la logique, la rhétorique, la grammaire

- les quatre matières scientifiques qui constituent le quadrivium : la musique, la géométrie, l'arithmétique et l'astronomie

 

Les arts libéraux étaient les principales matières enseignées à l'école à l'Antiquité et au Moyen-âge.

Puis, on a rajouté un 8ème médaillon avec Apollon et les 9 muses, divinités qui inspiraient et

protégeaient les artistes dans la tradition gréco-romaine.

 

Ces médaillons sur enduit sec, sont attribués à l'école de Fontainebleau ; le fruit d'un travail

entre Le Primatice et son élève et exécuteur testamentaire Ruggiero de Ruggieri. Le huitième serait attribué au Maître de Flore, autre élève du Primatice.

 

Ces œuvres ont été peu restaurées et sont dans un état de conservation exemplaire, seuls les cadres et le fond du décor de grotesques ont été remaniés au 19ème siècle. Des perroquets ainsi qu'un singe ont été peints en sachant que la reine Catherine de Médicis, épouse d'Henri II, aimait s'entourer de ces animaux...

Le plafond du 16ème siècle est un damier de 9 caissons, il est sans doute un des plus beaux de ce château. Dans son état d'origine, il a certes souffert de quelques infiltrations mais il n'a pas été retouché. La richesse de la polychromie est typique de cette époque Renaissance, des éléments moulés ont été insérés pour accentuer l'effet de profondeur.

 

Enfin, Antoine III a fait rajouter des médaillons, plus précisément des cartouches en papier mâché, peints avec les 12 signes du zodiaque, le plus visible de tous étant celui du poisson au-dessus du lit ou le lion. Rares exemples de cartouches et rosaces en papier mâché datant du 16ème siècle qui sont actuellement répertoriés en France.

 

Avant de quitter la pièce, nous noterons la présence de cette importante cheminée à griffe de lion, dont le décor était à la mode au 16ème siècle. Sur sa face vous pouvez voir peinte une ruche enflammée que le feu ne parvient pas à consumer d'où l'inscription latine en dessous "URIT NON CONSUMIT" qui signifie elle brûle sans se consumer. Certain y voit une allusion à l'état du royaume déchiré par les guerres de religions, la référence au nouveau mode de gouvernement mis en place à partir de la régence de Catherine de Médicis, la reine des abeilles et son essaim ou tout simplement une allégorie pour dire la persévérance dans les épreuves...

 

Source :

 

Poursuivez votre visite, ce n'est pas terminé... Néanmoins, je vous invite à jeter un coup d'œil par la fenêtre, un agréable panorama sur les jardins à l'Anglaise vous y attend.

 

Source : www.guidigo.com/Web/Le-chateau-d-Ancy-le-Franc

A dusk view towards the West Tower of University of Oxford Trinity College from the Broad Street gates.

 

This was one of a number of shots taken during an Oxford Flickr Night photography event and the first chance I had to test the low light capabililty of my new (at the time) Nikon D7200.

 

Click here to see more of my dusk / night shots : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157605239141446

 

From Wikipedia : "The main entrance to the college is on Broad Street, located between Balliol College and Blackwell's bookshop, and opposite Turl Street. It is enclosed by an iron palisade rather than a wall, and the college's distinctive blue gates provide it with a more open and accessible appearance than many others in Oxford. The rear of the college backs onto St John's College, and has entrances on both St Giles' and Parks Road. As well as its four major quadrangles, the college also boasts a large lawn and expansive gardens, which include a small area of woodland.

 

The 10,000 square feet (930 m2) Norrington Room (named after Sir Arthur Norrington, a former President of the college) of Blackwells bookshop lies underneath the college.

 

On the top of the West Tower sit four female statues, which represent Astronomy, Geometry, Medicine, and Theology (however, in the Humanist Quadrivium they are Astronomy, Mathematics, Geometry and Music)."

 

My Website : Twitter : Facebook : Instagram : Photocrowd

 

© D.Godliman

Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635. It was built near the now demolished Greenwich Palace, a few miles downriver from the City of London and is now in the London borough of Greenwich. It presently forms a central focus of what is now the Old Royal Naval College with a grand vista leading to the River Thames. The Queen's House architect, Inigo Jones, was commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark in 1616 and again to finish the house in 1635 by Queen Henrietta Maria. The Queen's House was commissioned by both Anne and Henrietta as a place to display artworks they had accumulated and commissioned; this includes a ceiling of the Great Hall that features a work by Orazio Gentileschi titled Allegory of Peace and the Arts.

 

Queen's House is one of the most important buildings in British architectural history, due to it being the first consciously classical building to have been constructed in the country. It was Jones's first major commission after returning from his 1613–1615 grand tour[1] of Roman, Renaissance, and Palladian architecture in Italy. Some earlier English buildings, such as Longleat and Burghley House, had made borrowings from the classical style, but the structure of these buildings was not informed by an understanding of classical precedents. Queen's House would have appeared revolutionary during this period. Although it diverges from the mathematical constraints of Palladio, Jones is often credited with the introduction of Palladianism with the construction of the Queen's House. Jones' unique architecture of the Queen's House also includes features like the Tulip Stairs, an intricate wrought iron staircase that holds itself up, and the Great Hall, a perfect cube.

 

After its brief use as a home for Royalty, the Queen's House was renovated into the Royal Hospital for Seamen. Today the building is both a Grade I listed building and a scheduled monument; A status that includes the 115-foot-wide (35 m) axial vista to the River Thames. The house is now part of the National Maritime Museum and is used to display parts of its substantial collection of maritime paintings and portraits.

 

Early history

Queen's House is located in Greenwich, London. It was built as an adjunct to the Tudor Palace of Greenwich, previously known before its redevelopment by Henry VII, as the Palace of Placentia; Which was a rambling, red-brick, building in a vernacular style. This would have presented a dramatic contrast of appearance to the newer, white-painted House. The original building was intended as a pavilion with a bridge over the London-Dover road, running between high walls through the park of the palace. Construction of the house began in 1616, but work on the house stopped in April 1618 when Anne became ill and died the following year. Work restarted when the house was given to the queen consort, Henrietta Maria, in 1629 by King Charles I. The house was structurally complete by 1635.

 

However, the house's original use was short, no more than seven years; The English Civil War began in 1642 and swept away the court culture from which it sprang. Although some of the house's interiors survive, including three ceilings and some wall decorations, none of the interior remains in its original state. The process of dismantling the house began as early as 1662, when masons removed a niche and term figures and a chimneypiece.

 

Artworks that had been commissioned by Charles I for the house, now reside elsewhere; These include a ceiling panel by Orazio Gentileschi, Allegory of Peace and the Arts, which is now installed at Marlborough House, London, a large Finding of Moses, now on loan from a private collection to the National Gallery, London, and a matching Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, still in the Royal Collection.

 

The Queen's House, though it was scarcely being used, provided the distant focal centre for Sir Christopher Wren's Greenwich Hospital, with a logic and grandeur that has seemed inevitable to architectural historians but in fact depended on Mary II's insistence that the vista to the water from the Queen's House not be impaired.

 

Architecture

Built by Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century, the Queen's House is England's first classical building. Inigo Jones was commissioned by Anne of Denmark in 1616 to build the unique house. At her death in 1619, the house was unfinished. Jones completed the house for Queen Henrietta Maria in 1635. The Queen's House is unique in style and characteristics compared to other English buildings of the time. Jones created a first-floor central bridge that joined the two halves of the building. Inigo Jones was heavily influenced by Italian Renaissance architecture and the Palladian style, created by Andrea Palladio. Jones applied the characteristics of harmony, detail, and proportion to the commission. Rather than being in the traditional, red-brick Tudor style like the then existing palace, the house is white and is known for its elegant proportions. Jones felt compelled to reflect political circumstances of the time through his use of his Orders, reflected in his "Roman Sketchbook" notes. In early designs of the Queen's house, Jones experimented with using the Corinthian Order in public, which at the time was used as court architecture and was viewed as "masculine and unaffected".

 

Two preliminary drawings have been associated with Anne of Denmark's commission. The first plan includes a rectangular villa with a circular staircase adjacent to a vaulted square hall with six pilasters along the exterior. The second plan is composed of an H-shaped building with a columnar bay and a balcony, which fits two of the elevations of the Queen's House. The completed Queen's House, finished under the request of Queen Henrietta Maria, reflects a public restraint mentioned in Jones' "Roman Sketchbook". Between 1632 and 1635 a central loggia was added to the south front and Columns were limited to this area. The columns were switched from Corinthian to Ionic to reflect the strictures of Serlio, being made for matrons.

 

Inigo Jones' design is famous for two of its aspects: the Great Hall and the Tulip Staircase. The Great Hall is the centerpiece of the Queen's House and holds a first-floor gallery that overlooks geometric-styled black and white marble flooring. The Great Hall is recognizable and innovative for its architecture; The shape of this hall is perfect cube, measuring 40 ft in each direction. Much like Jones' inspiration for the rest of the Queen's House, Jones used the rules of proportion created by Palladio.

 

The Tulip Staircase was an unusual feature during this period and the first of its kind. Made of ornate wrought iron, it is Britain's first geometric and unsupported staircase. Each tread is cantilevered from the wall and supported by the step below, a design invented by the mason, Nicholas Stone. Each step is interlocked along the bottom of the riser. Jones found inspiration for the staircase, and the glass lantern above, from Palladio's Carita Monastery, where he noted that the staircases with a void in the center "succeed very well because they can have light from above". Jones hired Nicholas Stone to lay the black and white flooring which mirrored the design of the ceiling.

 

Patron

Anne of Denmark, the wife of James I of England, was an important patron of the arts. Anne commissioned her frequent collaborator, Inigo Jones, to refurbish the Queen's House in Greenwich. Although the Queen's House was not completed before her death in 1619, Anne was able to use the palace at Greenwich as a personal gallery before her death. Both James I and Anne had private galleries and fashioned them in similar ways. Jemma Field describes the spaces as a place of political significance; "All objects and furnishings were appraised as signs of Stuart wealth, merit, and honour". Anne of Denmark's project may have been influenced by her knowledge of garden buildings and hunting lodges in Denmark, and her brother Christian IV of Denmark sent two Danish stonemasons to work for her at Greenwich for nine months.

 

Queen Henrietta Maria

Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, son of Anne and James, inherited the rights to Greenwich Park in 1629. She commissioned Inigo Jones to return and finish the Queen's House between approximately 1629 and 1638. As an important patron for contemporary artists, Henrietta acquired and commissioned many works of art for the Queen's House. Henrietta used the palace as a "House of Delights" and filled the home with spectacular pieces of art, including the Great Ceiling.

 

Allegory of Peace and the Arts (Ceiling by Orazio Gentileschi)

Orazio Gentileschi, a favorite at the court of Charles I, was commissioned by Queen Henrietta Maria to decorate her "House of Delights". By Gentileschi's death in 1639, the Queen's House contained about half of Gentileschi's English works, including the ceiling of the Great Hall from 1635 to 1638. The central work of this hall features the Allegory of Peace and the Arts, a central tondo surrounded by eight other canvases. The ceiling creates a visual celebration of the reign of King Charles I and his encouragement of peace and the liberal arts. Gentileschi Illuminates the taste and patronage of Henrietta Marie by embodying the power of women throughout the ceiling, all but one of the twenty-six figures are women.

 

The composition of the ceiling includes a large central tondo with four rectangular canvases on each side of the ceiling and four smaller tondos on the corners. The central tondo, the personification of Peace is depicted floating on a cloud and is surrounded by the figures representing the Liberal Arts, Victory, and Fortune. The surrounding panels depict the nine Muses, and the personifications of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Music. The image of Peace, in the central tondo, is seated on a cloud and holding an olive branch in one hand and a staff in the other, embodying the message that Peace is a product of good government and rule because of the encouragement of knowledge, learning, creativity while remaining within the realm of Reason. Peace, the only male figure, is positioned in the center of the panel portraying him as the most important and the central quality by allowing the others to be around him. The other twelve females are the personifications of the trivium(Grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and quadrivium(arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry) that make up the Liberal Arts.

 

In 1708, Gentileschi's series of nine paintings were removed, given by Queen Anne to Sarah Churchhill. They were installed in Marlborough House, St James, where they can still be viewed today.

 

For the first time since 1639, when Gentileschi worked on the ceiling, another artist has recently worked on the ceiling, Turner Prize winner, Richard Wright. In 2016, Wright and his team of five assistants worked together to fill the empty spaces of the ceiling left behind by the Gentileschi panels. The team used a series of scaffolded flat beds to support them while they transferred a sketch to the ceiling, applied size to the outline, and then covered it with gold leaf. Wright took influence from the geometric patterning on the floor, the intricate details of the tulip staircase, and created a ceiling that reflects the Queen's House's geometry, beauty, and intracity.

 

Construction of the Greenwich Hospital

Although the house survived as an official building, being used for the lying-in-state of Commonwealth Generals-at-Sea Richard Dean (1653) and Robert Blake (1657), the main palace was progressively demolished between 1660 and 1690. Between 1696 and 1751, to the master-plan of Sir Christopher Wren, the palace was replaced by the Royal Hospital for Seamen (now referred to as the Old Royal Naval College). Due to the positioning of Queen's House, and Queen Mary II's request that it retain its view of the river, Wren's Hospital architectural design was composed of two matching pairs of courts that were separated by a grand 'visto' the exact width of the house(115 ft).

 

Wren's first plan, which was blocking the view to the Thames, became known to history as "Christopher Wren's faux pas". The whole ensemble at Greenwich forms an architectural vista that stretches from the Thames to Greenwich Park, and is one of the principal features that in 1997 led UNESCO to inscribe 'Maritime Greenwich' as a World Heritage Site.

 

19th-century additions

From 1806 the house was used as the center of the Royal Hospital School for the sons of seamen. This change in use necessitated new accommodations; Wings and a flanking pair were added to east and west and connected to the house by colonnades (designed by London Docks architect Daniel Asher Alexander). In 1933, the school moved to Holbrook, Suffolk and it's Greenwich buildings, including the house, were converted and restored; They became the new National Maritime Museum (NMM), created by Act of Parliament in 1934 and opened in 1937.

 

Following construction of the cut-and-cover tunnel between Greenwich and Maze Hill stations, the grounds immediately to the north of the house were reinstated in the late 1870s. The tunnel comprised the continuation of the London and Greenwich Railway and opened in 1878.

 

Recent years

In 2012, the grounds to the south of the Queen's House were used to house a stadium for the equestrian events of the Olympic Games. The grounds were used to stage the modern pentathlon, while the Queen's House in particular was used as a VIP center for the games.

 

Work to prepare the Queen's House involved some internal re-modelling and work on the lead roof to prepare it for security and camera installations.[citation needed] The house underwent a 14-month restoration beginning in 2015, and reopened on 11 October 2016. The house had previously been restored between 1986 and 1999, with contemporary insertions that modernised the building. The modernization created controversial due to the new ceiling in the main hall created by artist Richard Wright, a Turner prize winner. In some quarters, it provoked some debate: an editorial in The Burlington Magazine, November 1995, alluded to "the recent transformation of the Queen's House into a theme-park interior of fake furniture and fireplaces, tatty modern plaster casts and clip-on chandeliers".

 

Current use

The house is now primarily used to display the museum's substantial collection of marine paintings and portraits of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, and for other public and private events. It is normally open to the public daily, free of charge, as well as other museum galleries and the seventeenth-century Royal Observatory, Greenwich, which is also part of the National Maritime Museum.

 

In Autumn 2022, a 1768 painting by the artist Tilly Kettle went on permanent display. The painting depicts Sir Samuel Cornish, 1st Baronet, Richard Kempenfelt and Thomas Parry on HMS Norfolk and was purchased by the National Maritime Museum, with assistance from the Society for Nautical Research.

dated 1565 ; From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the quadrivium (plural: quadrivia) was a grouping of four subjects or arts - arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy - that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the trivium, consisting of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Together, the trivium and the quadrivium comprised the seven liberal arts,{en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium}

Places / Germany / Baden-Wurttemberg / Tubinga / Melanchthonstrasse 26 - 34

Melanchthonstr., Tübingen, 72070, Deutschland

°°

Camera Nokia Lumia 800

Exposure 0.001 sec (1/693)

Aperture f/2.2

 

Ging nicht besser mit der TZ41!

  

°°°

Philipp Schwartzerdt; aka Philipp Melanchthon

melanchthon.com/Melanchthonhaus-Bretten/de/Melanchthon/Ki...

 

Philologe, Philosoph, Humanist, Theologe, Lehrbuchautor und neulateinischer Dichter.

Er war als Reformator neben Martin Luther eine treibende Kraft der deutschen und europäischen kirchenpolitischen Reformation und wurde auch „Praeceptor Germaniae“ (Lehrer Deutschlands) genannt.

 

Melanchton in Tübingen

Philipp Melanchthons Vater Georg Schwartzerdt (um 1459–1508) stammte aus Heidelberg und war mit dem Amt des kurfürstlichen Rüstmeisters und Waffenschmiedes (Vorsteher der fürstlichen Waffenkammer) betraut. Seine Mutter Barbara Reuter (1476/1477–1529) war eine Tochter des Tuch- und Weinhändlers, Schultheißen und Bürgermeisters von Bretten, Johann (Hans) Reuter († 1508), und seiner Frau Elisabeth geb. Reuchlin († 1518), die die Schwester des Humanisten Johannes Reuchlin war.

 

1512 wechselte Melanchthon(1497 - 1560) vom Heidelberg an die Universität Tübingen. Dort studierte er Arithmetik, Geometrie, Musik und Astronomie (Quadrivium). Nebenher beschäftigte er sich mit Griechisch, Hebräisch und Latein. Er las antike Autoren sowie humanistische Dichter und machte Bekanntschaft mit neuen Lehrmethoden.

 

Am 25. Januar 1514 schloss er sein Studium an der Artistenfakultät mit dem Magistertitel ab. Bereits in Tübingen war er als Tutor zweier Grafensöhne tätig gewesen und hatte als Griechischlehrer gewirkt. Somit war der Übergang vom Lernenden zum Lehrenden bei Melanchthon fließend erfolgt. In die Tübinger Zeit fallen auch Melanchthons eigene erste Publikationen, so 1516 eine Ausgabe des römischen Komödiendichters Terenz samt einer Einleitung über die Geschichte der antiken Komödie, des Weiteren 1518 eine griechische Grammatik, die bis 1544 neunzehn Auflagen erlebte. Und letztlich arbeitete er an einer Rhetorik, die 1519 in Wittenberg herauskam.

 

Reuchlin verlieh dem Philipp Schwartzerdt am 15. März 1509 den Humanistennamen Melanchthon, eine Gräzisierung des Geburtsnamens Schwartz – μέλας/μέλαινα/μέλαν (melas/melaina/melan) – und erdt – χθών (chthon).

 

Als Kenner der altgriechischen Sprache förderte Reuchlin (oberster Richter) durch seine Texte und Übersetzungen die Kenntnisse des Griechischen in Deutschland. In der Folge sollte er Melanchthons größter Förderer werden. Die Lehre der griechischen Sprache wurde damals nur besonders begabten Schülern vermittelt.

Melanchton folgt Luther

Als Martin Luther 1517 seine 95 Thesen veröffentlichte, fand am 26. April 1518 eine Heidelberger Disputation über die Grundlagen seiner Forderungen an der Universität statt, die bei Melanchthon entscheidenden Eindruck hinterließ. Er begab sich daher mit seinen Studienkollegen nach Wittenberg, um sich die Ansichten Luthers näher erläutern zu lassen. Fortan war Melanchthon gegenüber dem reformatorischen Gedankengut aufgeschlossen.

 

Zitate.

"Wer Christus hat, hat alles und kann alles." - Loci Communes, 1521

"Christus zu erkennen bedeutet, seine Wohltaten, nicht... seine Naturen zu erkennen." - Loci Communes, 1521

(Original lat.: "Hoc est Christum cognoscere, beneficia ejus cognoscere, non... ejus naturas.")

Cette pièce fut une des premières pièces à recevoir son décor : c'était la Chambre du Maître,

Antoine III de Clermont. Décorée de très beau médaillons représentant les 7 Arts Libéraux :

- les trois matières littéraires qui constituent ce qu'on appelle le trivium : la logique, la rhétorique, la grammaire

- les quatre matières scientifiques qui constituent le quadrivium : la musique, la géométrie, l'arithmétique et l'astronomie

 

Les arts libéraux étaient les principales matières enseignées à l'école à l'Antiquité et au Moyen-âge.

Puis, on a rajouté un 8ème médaillon avec Apollon et les 9 muses, divinités qui inspiraient et

protégeaient les artistes dans la tradition gréco-romaine.

 

Ces médaillons sur enduit sec, sont attribués à l'école de Fontainebleau ; le fruit d'un travail

entre Le Primatice et son élève et exécuteur testamentaire Ruggiero de Ruggieri. Le huitième serait attribué au Maître de Flore, autre élève du Primatice.

 

Ces œuvres ont été peu restaurées et sont dans un état de conservation exemplaire, seuls les cadres et le fond du décor de grotesques ont été remaniés au 19ème siècle. Des perroquets ainsi qu'un singe ont été peints en sachant que la reine Catherine de Médicis, épouse d'Henri II, aimait s'entourer de ces animaux...

Le plafond du 16ème siècle est un damier de 9 caissons, il est sans doute un des plus beaux de ce château. Dans son état d'origine, il a certes souffert de quelques infiltrations mais il n'a pas été retouché. La richesse de la polychromie est typique de cette époque Renaissance, des éléments moulés ont été insérés pour accentuer l'effet de profondeur.

 

Enfin, Antoine III a fait rajouter des médaillons, plus précisément des cartouches en papier mâché, peints avec les 12 signes du zodiaque, le plus visible de tous étant celui du poisson au-dessus du lit ou le lion. Rares exemples de cartouches et rosaces en papier mâché datant du 16ème siècle qui sont actuellement répertoriés en France.

 

Avant de quitter la pièce, nous noterons la présence de cette importante cheminée à griffe de lion, dont le décor était à la mode au 16ème siècle. Sur sa face vous pouvez voir peinte une ruche enflammée que le feu ne parvient pas à consumer d'où l'inscription latine en dessous "URIT NON CONSUMIT" qui signifie elle brûle sans se consumer. Certain y voit une allusion à l'état du royaume déchiré par les guerres de religions, la référence au nouveau mode de gouvernement mis en place à partir de la régence de Catherine de Médicis, la reine des abeilles et son essaim ou tout simplement une allégorie pour dire la persévérance dans les épreuves...

 

Source :

 

Poursuivez votre visite, ce n'est pas terminé... Néanmoins, je vous invite à jeter un coup d'œil par la fenêtre, un agréable panorama sur les jardins à l'Anglaise vous y attend.

 

Source : www.guidigo.com/Web/Le-chateau-d-Ancy-le-Franc

Gesta Theodorici: Leiden, University Library, Ms. vul. 46, fol. 2r

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Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer serving in the administration of Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.

 

Cassiodorus was born at Scylletium, near Catanzaro in Calabria, Italy. His ancestry included some of the most prominent ministers of the state extending back several generations. His great-grandfather held a command in the defense of the coasts of southern Italy from Vandal sea-raiders in the middle of the fifth century; his grandfather appears in a Roman embassy to Attila the Hun, and his father served as Count of the sacred largesses and count of the private estates to Odovacer before transferring his allegiance to Theoderic. Under the latter, Cassiodorus' father (who bore the same name), rose to an even higher position, achieving the office of Praetorian Prefect, which held, under the Gothic kings, the same influence which it had previously in the court of Rome.

 

Cassiodorus began his career under the auspices of his father, about in his twentieth year, when the latter made him his consiliarius upon his own appointment to the Praetorian Prefecture. In the judicial capacity of the prefect, he held absolute right of appeal over any magistrate in the empire (or Gothic kingdom, later) and the consiliarius served as a sort of legal advisor in cases of more complexity. Evidently, therefore, Cassiodorus had received some education in the law.

During his working life he worked as quaestor sacri palatii c. 507–511, as a consul in 514, then as magister officiorum under Theoderic, and later under the regency for Theoderic's young successor, Athalaric. Cassiodorus kept copious records and letterbooks concerning public affairs. At the Gothic court his literary skill, which seems mannered and rhetorical to modern readers, was so esteemed that when in Ravenna he was often entrusted with drafting significant public documents. His culminating appointment was as praetorian prefect for Italy, effectively the prime ministership of the Ostrogothic civil government[3] and a high honor to finish any career. Cassiodorus also collaborated with Pope Agapetus I in establishing a library of Greek and Latin texts which were intended to support a Christian school in Rome.

 

James O'Donnell notes:

 

[I]t is almost indisputable that he accepted advancement in 523 as the immediate successor of Boethius, who was then falling from grace after less than a year as magister officiorum, and who was sent to prison and later executed. In addition, Boethius' father-in-law (and step-father) Symmachus, by this time a distinguished elder statesman, followed Boethius to the block within a year. All this was a result of the worsening split between the ancient senatorial aristocracy centered in Rome and the adherents of Gothic rule at Ravenna. But to read Cassiodorus' Variae one would never suspect such goings-on.

 

There is no mention in Cassiodorus' selection of official correspondence of the death of Boethius.

 

Athalaric died in early 534, and the remainder of Cassiodorus' public career was dominated by the Byzantine reconquest and dynastic intrigue among the Ostrogoths. His last letters were drafted in the name of Vitiges.

 

Around 537–38, he left Italy for Constantinople, from where his successor was appointed, where he remained for almost two decades, concentrating on religious questions. He notably met Junillus, the quaestor of Justinian I there. His Constantinopolitan journey contributed to the improvement of his religious knowledge.

 

Cassiodorus spent his career trying to bridge the 6th-century cultural divides: between East and West, Greek culture and Latin, Roman and Goth, and between an Orthodox people and their Arian rulers. He speaks fondly in his Institutiones of Dionysius Exiguus, the calculator of the Anno Domini era.

 

In his retirement, he founded the monastery of Vivarium on his family estates on the shores of the Ionian Sea, and his writings turned to religion.

 

Cassiodorus' Vivarium "monastery school" was composed of two main buildings: a coenobitic monastery and a retreat, for those who desired a more solitary life. Both were located on the site of the modern Santa Maria de Vetere near Squillace. The twin structure of Vivarium was to permit coenobitic monks and hermits to coexist. The Vivarium appears not to have been governed by a strict monastic rule, such as that of the Benedictine Order. Rather Cassiodorus' work Institutiones was written to guide the monks' studies. To this end, the Institutiones focus largely on texts assumed to have been available in Vivarium's library. The Institutiones seem to have been composed over a lengthy period of time, from the 530s into the 550s, with redactions up to the time of Cassiodorus' death. Cassiodorus composed the Institutiones as a guide for introductory learning of both "divine" and "secular" writings, in place of his formerly planned Christian school in Rome:

 

I was moved by divine love to devise for you, with God's help, these introductory books to take the place of a teacher. Through them I believe that both the textual sequence of Holy Scripture and also a compact account of secular letters may, with God's grace, be revealed.

 

The first section of the Institutiones deals with Christian texts, and was intended to be used in combination with the Expositio Psalmorum.

 

The order of subjects in the second book of the Institutiones reflected what would become the Trivium and Quadrivium of medieval liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. While he encouraged study of secular subjects, Cassiodorus clearly considered them useful primarily as aids to the study of divinity, much in the same manner as St. Augustine. Cassiodorus' Institutiones thus attempted to provide what Cassiodorus saw as a well-rounded education necessary for a learned Christian, all in uno corpore, as Cassiodorus put it.

 

The library at Vivarium was still active c. 630, when the monks brought the relics of Saint Agathius from Constantinople, dedicating to him a spring-fed fountain shrine that still exists. However, its books were later dispersed, the Codex Grandior of the Bible being purchased by the Anglo-Saxon Ceolfrith when he was in Italy in 679–80, and taken by him to Wearmouth Jarrow, where it served as the source for the copying of the Codex Amiatinus, which was then brought back to Italy by the now aged Ceolfrith. Despite the demise of the Vivarium, Cassiodorus' work in compiling classical sources and presenting a sort of bibliography of resources would prove extremely influential in Late Antique Western Europe.

 

Educational philosophy

 

Cassiodorus devoted much of his life to supporting education within the Christian community at large. When his proposed theological university in Rome was denied, he was forced to re-examine his entire approach to how material was learned and interpreted. His Variae show that, like Augustine of Hippo, Cassiodorus viewed reading as a transformative act for the reader. It is with this in mind that he designed and mandated the course of studies at the Vivarium, which demanded an intense regimen of reading and meditation. By assigning a specific order of texts to be read, Cassiodorus hoped to create the discipline necessary within the reader to become a successful monk. The first work in this succession of texts would be the Psalms, which the untrained reader would need to begin with because of its appeal to emotion and temporal goods. By examining the rate at which copies of his Psalmic commentaries were issued, it is fair to assess that as the first work in his series, Cassiodorus's educational agenda had been implemented to some degree of success.

 

Beyond demanding the pursuit of discipline among his students, Cassiodorus encouraged the study of the liberal arts. He believed these arts were part of the content of the Bible, and some mastery of them—especially grammar and rhetoric—necessary for a complete understanding of it. These arts were divided into trivium (which included rhetoric, idioms, vocabulary and etymology) and quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

 

Classical connections

 

Cassiodorus is rivalled only by Boethius in his drive to preserve and explore classical literature during the 6th century AD. He found the writings of the Greeks and Romans valuable for their expression of higher truths where other arts failed. Though he saw these texts as vastly inferior to the perfect word of Scripture, the truths presented in them played to Cassiodorus's educational principles. Thus he is unafraid to cite Cicero alongside sacred text, and acknowledge the classical ideal of good being part of the practice of rhetoric.

 

His love for classical thought also influenced his administration of Vivarium. Cassiodorus connected deeply with Christian neoplatonism, which saw beauty as concomitant with the Good. This inspired him to adjust his educational program to support the aesthetic enhancement of manuscripts within the monastery, something which had been practiced before, but not in the universality that he suggests.

 

Classical learning would by no means replace the role of scripture within the monastery; it was intended to augment the education already under way. It is also worth noting that all Greek and Roman works were heavily screened to ensure only proper exposure to text, fitting with the rest of the structured learning.

 

Lasting impact

 

Cassiodorus's legacy is quietly profound. Before the founding of Vivarium, the copying of manuscripts had been a task reserved for either inexperienced or physically infirm devotees, and was performed at the whim of literate monks. Through the influence of Cassiodorus, the monastic system adopted a more vigorous, widespread, and regular approach to reproducing documents within the monastery. This approach to the development of the monastic lifestyle was perpetuated especially through German religious institutions.

 

This change in daily life also became associated with a higher purpose: the process was not merely associated with disciplinary habit, but also with the preservation of history. During Cassiodorus's lifetime, theological study was on the decline and classical writings were disappearing. Even as the victorious Ostrogoth armies remained in the countryside, they continued to pillage and destroy religious relics in Italy. Cassiodorus's programme helped ensure that both classical and sacred literature were preserved through the Middle Ages.

 

Despite his contributions to monastic order, literature, and education, Cassiodorus' labors were not well acknowledged. After his death he was only partially recognized by historians of the age, including Bede, as an obscure supporter of the Church. In their descriptions of Cassiodorus, medieval scholars have been documented to change his name, profession, place of residence, and even his religion. Some chapters from his works have been copied into other texts, suggesting that he may have been read, but not generally known.

 

Criticism

 

The works not assigned as a part of Cassiodorus's educational program must be examined critically. Because he had been working under the newly dominant power of the Ostrogoths, the writer demonstrably alters the narrative of history for the sake of protecting himself. The same could easily be said about his ideas, which were presented as non-threatening in their approach to peaceful meditation and its institutional isolationism (Wikipedia).

foto difficile, non un muro diritto !

 

Caróggi ([ka'rudʤ:i] è la corretta grafia sebbene talvolta è resa anche con caruggi o carrugi, ma pure con carroggi o carugi) è il termine con il quale in lingua genovese si indicano i caratteristici e stretti portici e/o vicoli ombrosi di molte città e paeselli della riviera ligure.

Probabilmente il termine deriva da quadrivium forse con l'apporto di "carro". Secondo taluni potrebbe derivare da carriaggi, dalla parola di lingua francese charriage (variante in lingua spagnola carruaje; latino càrrus+àticum, ovvero carràticum o carriàticum, carro+aggio).

Nella toponomastica ufficiale il vocabolo caruggio è tradotto con vicolo.

Nei tempi antichi, la conformazione dei caruggi, con le costruzioni assai contigue, aveva anche uno scopo difensivo soprattutto contro le razzie dei pirati. Era infatti molto facile approntare barricate e difendere le postazioni dalle finestre.

 

Distinta dal caruggio, ma ad esso accomunata dalle anguste proporzioni, è la crosa, o meglio la crêuza, mulattiera, o scalinata o ancora piccola salita che dalle alture collinari scende ripidamente a valle; se situata nei pressi del mare, spesso in prossimità di trivi (incroci di tre strade) la crêuza diventa una Crêuza de mä, ovvero una crêuza di mare.

 

Do not use any of my images on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit written permission.

All rights reserved - Copyright © fotomie2009 - Nora Caracci

GVLIEDLMO FREDERICO GEORGIO LUDOVICO

Principi Arausionensi

Quo ducunte viamque laudis praeeunte

Belgicae cohortes

AD XVI iuni a MDCCCXV

Incredibili fortitudine ac constantia

Ad vicinum Bruxellis quadrivium

Ferocissimi hostis primo impetu repulso

Reportatae deinde longe gloriossimae

Apud Waterloam de napoleonte victoriae

Atque adeo servatae ab interitu reip.

Principes auctoresque celebrari meruerunt

Hocce rarae virtutis monumentum

Annuente Culielmo Frederico rege

Gratea posuit patria

Detail fol. 44. Bibliotheque municipale de Montpellier, manuscript 4. NOUGARET, Jean; SAINT JEAN, Robert; LUGAND, Jacques (1975). Languedoc Roman (Le Languedoc Méditerranéen). La Nuit des Temps, Zodiaque.

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Saint Isidore of Seville (/ˈɪzɪdɔːr/; Latin: Isidorus Hispalensis; Seville, c. 560 – Seville, 4 April 636), a scholar and, for over three decades, Archbishop of Seville, is widely regarded, as the 19th-century historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "The last scholar of the ancient world."

 

At a time of disintegration of classical culture, and aristocratic violence and illiteracy, he was involved in the conversion of the Arian Visigothic kings to Catholicism, both assisting his brother Leander of Seville, and continuing after his brother's death. He was influential in the inner circle of Sisebut, Visigothic king of Hispania. Like Leander, he played a prominent role in the Councils of Toledo and Seville. The Visigothic legislation that resulted from these councils influenced the beginnings of representative government.

 

His fame after his death was based on his Etymologiae, an etymological encyclopedia which assembled extracts of many books from classical antiquity that would have otherwise been lost.

 

Isidore was born in Cartagena, Spain, a former Carthaginian colony, to Severianus and Theodora. Both Severianus and Theodora belonged to notable Hispano-Roman families of high social rank. His parents were members of an influential family who were instrumental in the political-religious maneuvering that converted the Visigothic kings from Arianism to Catholicism. The Catholic Church celebrates him and all his siblings as known saints:

 

An elder brother, Saint Leander of Seville, immediately preceded Saint Isidore as Archbishop of Seville and, while in office, opposed king Liuvigild.

A younger brother, Saint Fulgentius of Cartagena, served as the Bishop of Astigi at the start of the new reign of the Catholic King Reccared.

His sister, Saint Florentina, served God as a nun and allegedly ruled over forty convents and one thousand consecrated religious. This claim seems unlikely, however, given the few functioning monastic institutions in Iberia during her lifetime.

 

Isidore received his elementary education in the Cathedral school of Seville. In this institution, the first of its kind in Iberia, a body of learned men including Archbishop Saint Leander of Seville taught the trivium and quadrivium, the classic liberal arts. Saint Isidore applied himself to study diligently enough that he quickly mastered Latin, and acquired some Greek, and Hebrew.

 

Two centuries of Gothic control of Iberia incrementally suppressed the ancient institutions, classic learning, and manners of the Roman Empire. The associated culture entered a period of long-term decline. The ruling Visigoths nevertheless showed some respect for the outward trappings of Roman culture. Arianism meanwhile took deep root among the Visigoths as the form of Christianity that they received.

 

Scholars may debate whether Isidore ever personally embraced monastic life or affiliated with any religious order, but he undoubtedly esteemed the monks highly.

 

After the death of Saint Leander of Seville on 13 March 600 or 601, Isidore succeeded to the See of Seville. On his elevation to the episcopate, he immediately constituted himself as protector of monks.

 

Saint Isidore recognized that the spiritual and material welfare of the people of his See depended on the assimilation of remnant Roman and ruling barbarian cultures, and consequently attempted to weld the peoples and subcultures of the Visigothic kingdom into a united nation. He used all available religious resources toward this end and succeeded. Isidore practically eradicated the heresy of Arianism and completely stifled the new heresy of Acephali at its very outset. Archbishop Isidore strengthened religious discipline throughout his See.

 

Archbishop Isidore also used resources of education to counteract increasingly influential Gothic barbarism throughout his episcopal jurisdiction. His quickening spirit animated the educational movement centered on Seville. Saint Isidore introduced Aristotle to his countrymen long before the Arabs studied Greek philosophy extensively.

 

In 619, Saint Isidore of Seville pronounced anathema against any ecclesiastic who in any way should molest the monasteries.

 

Second Synod of Seville (November 619)

Saint Isidore presided over the Second Council of Seville, begun on 13 November 619, in the reign of King Sisebut, a provincial council attended by eight other bishops, all from the ecclesiastical province of Baetica in southern Spain. The Acts of the Council fully set forth the nature of Christ, countering the conceptions of Gregory, a Syrian representing the heretical Acephali.

 

Based on a few surviving canons found in the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, Saint Isidore is known to have presided over an additional provincial council around 624.

 

The council dealt with a conflict over the See of Écija, and wrongfully stripped bishop Martianus of his see, a situation that was rectified by the Fourth Council of Toledo. It also addressed a concern over Jews who had been forced to convert to Christianity by Sisebut failing to present their children for baptism.

 

The records of the council, unlike the First and Second Councils of Seville were not preserved in the Hispana, a collection of canons and decretals likely edited by Saint Isidore himself.

 

Fourth National Council of Toledo

All bishops of Hispania attended the Fourth National Council of Toledo, begun on 5 December 633. The aged Archbishop Saint Isidore presided over its deliberations and originated most enactments of the council.

 

Through Isidore's influence, this Council of Toledo promulgated a decree, commanding all bishops to establish seminaries in their cathedral cities along the lines of the cathedral school at Seville, which had educated Saint Isidore decades earlier. The decree prescribed the study of Greek, Hebrew, and the liberal arts and encouraged interest in law and medicine. The authority of the Council made this education policy obligatory upon all bishops of the Kingdom of the Visigoths. The council granted remarkable position and deference to the king of the Visigoths. The independent Church bound itself in allegiance to the acknowledged king; it said nothing of allegiance to the Bishop of Rome.

 

Saint Isidore of Seville died on 4 April 636 after serving more than 32 years as archbishop of Seville.

 

Isidore was the first Christian writer to try to compile a summa of universal knowledge, in his most important work, the Etymologiae (taking its title from the method he uncritically used in the transcription of his era's knowledge). It is also known by classicists as the Origines (the standard abbreviation being Orig). This encyclopedia — the first such Christian epitome—formed a huge compilation of 448 chapters in 20 volumes.

 

In it, as Isidore entered his own terse digest of Roman handbooks, miscellanies and compendia, he continued the trend towards abridgements and summaries that had characterised Roman learning in Late Antiquity. In the process, many fragments of classical learning are preserved which otherwise would have been hopelessly lost; "in fact, in the majority of his works, including the Origines, he contributes little more than the mortar which connects excerpts from other authors, as if he was aware of his deficiencies and had more confidence in the stilus maiorum than his own" his translator Katherine Nell MacFarlane remarks.

 

Some of these fragments were lost in the first place because Isidore's work was so highly regarded—Braulio called it quaecunque fere sciri debentur, "practically everything that it is necessary to know"— that it superseded the use of many individual works of the classics themselves, which were not recopied and have therefore been lost: "all secular knowledge that was of use to the Christian scholar had been winnowed out and contained in one handy volume; the scholar need search no further".

 

The fame of this work imparted a new impetus to encyclopedic writing, which bore abundant fruit in the subsequent centuries of the Middle Ages. It was the most popular compendium in medieval libraries. It was printed in at least ten editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore's continued popularity in the Renaissance. Until the 12th century brought translations from Arabic sources, Isidore transmitted what western Europeans remembered of the works of Aristotle and other Greeks, although he understood only a limited amount of Greek. The Etymologiae was much copied, particularly into medieval bestiaries.

 

Isidore's De fide catholica contra Iudaeos furthers Augustine of Hippo's ideas on the Jewish presence in Christian society. Like Augustine, Isidore accepted the necessity of the Jewish presence because of their expected role in the anticipated Second Coming of Christ. In De fide catholica contra Iudaeos, Isidore exceeds the anti-rabbinic polemics of earlier theologians by criticizing Jewish practice as deliberately disingenuous.

 

He contributed two decisions to the Fourth Council of Toledo: Canon 60 calling for the forced removal of children from parents practicing Crypto-Judaism and their education by Christians and Canon 65 forbidding Jews and Christians of Jewish origin from holding public office (Wikipedia).

 

過曝……愛好者

Vicente Liem de la Paz (1732 - November 7, 1773) was a Tonkinese (present day northern Vietnam) Dominican friar venerated as a saint and martyr by the Roman Catholic Church. He was born at Tra-lu, Tonkin in 1732 to Antonio and Monica Daeon de la Cruz, members of the Tonkinese nobility. When he fell gravely ill several days after his birth, he was baptized by Fr. Chien de Santo Tomas, taking the name of Vicente Liem de la Paz. Since Tra-lu was one of those Tonkinese villages where Dominican friars preached the Catholic faith, Liem grew up to be a Christian. He was later brought by his parents to a missionary center where he learned catechism.

In 1738, King Philip V of Spain opened the Colegio de San Juan de Letran and the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines to Chinese and Tonkinese students, since China and Tonkin did not have Christian educational institutions. The Dominican fathers decided to let Liem with four other Tonkinese (Jose de Santo Tomas, Juan de Sto. Domingo, Pedro Martir and Pedro de San Jacinto) study in the Philippines.

Vicente took the trivium and the quadrivium in Letran, now the equivalent of elementary and secondary education. He finished a degree of lector of humanities at Letran. He would pursue his collegiate education at the University of Santo Tomas while residing at Letran. In September 1753, after completing his studies at UST, he entered the Dominican order, along with his four Tonkinese companions. A year later, they made their solemn professions. On January 28, 1755, he received the tonsure and minor orders at the Church of Sta. Ana. In 1758, de la Paz was ordained priest under the Dominican order. On September of that year, he passed the examinations to hear confessions. On October 3, he started his journey back to Tonkin. He arrived on January 20, 1759.

He spent time at Tonkin on evangelizing the Tonkinese people. However the Tonkinese authorities did not agree with this. On October 2, 1773, he and his two assistants were arrested at Co Dou. He and his assistants were beaten up, after which they traveled on foot to the village of Dou Hoi. There he met another Dominican priest, Jacinto Castaneda. They were presented to the Vice Governor and to the Royal Minister. They were thrown to a cage for a night. The arrival of a High Minister prompted their transfer to Kien Nam, where the King held his court. While under detention, they still managed to preach Catholicism to the people. Later they were taken to Tan Cau, then to the house of Canh Thuy. Finally they were brought to the King where they were tried. Their trial led for the King to be angry and they were thrown to jail. After several days, the King brought down the guilty verdict with the penalty of beheading.[citation needed] The execution occurred on November 7, 1773. After the execution, the Christians who were present at the site carried away the bodies of de la Paz and Castaneda, where they were laid to rest at the town of Tru Linh. Several more Christian missionaries were put to death by the Tonkinese authorities.

The process of beatification of de la Paz and Casteneda, as well as other Dominican martyrs, was initiated through Vicar Apostolic Bishop Ignacio Delgado, O.P. They were beatified by Pope Pius X with his feast day on November 6. Pope John Paul II announced the canonization of de la Paz on June 19, 1988, with his feast day on November 24.

DANSK/ ENGELSK:

 

Rothschilds lovsangsmanusript, MS 404

Flandern eller Rhin-området, omkring 1300.

En rigt illustreret antologi med meditationer og bønner på basis af bl.a. Salomos Lovsang og Augustins De Trinitate. Manuskriptet er bemærkelsesværdigt for dets illuminerede initialer og illustrationer af flere forskellige kunstnere.

Opdelingen af de syv frie kunster er her utraditionel. Denne side domineres af en repræsentant for Musica fra kvadrivium. Derunder er disciplinerne Logica (dialektik) og Retorica (retorik) fra trivium gengivet.

 

The Rothschild Canticles, MS 404

Flanders or the Rhineland, turn of the 14th century

"An intensely illustrated florilegium of meditations and prayers drawing from the Song of Songs and Augustine’s De Trinitate, among other texts, the Rothschild Canticles is remarkable for its full-page miniatures, historiated initials, and drawings, which show the work of multiple artists."

 

The division of the seven liberal arts here is unconventional. This page is dominated a representative of Musica from quadrivium. Underneath him the disciplines Logica (dialectic) and Retorica (rhetoric) from trivium are reproduced.

 

brbl-archive.library.yale.edu/exhibitions/golittlebook/ro...

 

Yale University Library:

brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3432521

 

Public Domain/ Fair use:

beinecke.library.yale.edu/research/permissions-copyright

Masonic Pavement and Indented Skirting.

 

www.kilwinning565.com/app/download/866207004/Five-pointed...

 

The Symbolism on Our Lodge Officers

 

by Norman Senn, P.M. Mosaic Lodge #176 Fiat Lux Lodge of Research #1980

 

It is often said that symbolism is carried too far and this is

difficult to deny when I think of Freud and other psychiatrists and psychologists who seem able to find strange and often erotic meanings in all they see. The meanings given to every image based on repetition makes the lay-person feel at a serious disadvantage when they wish to contradict anything that is given a meaning by such "Specialists." The symbolic object, which is dredged up by the mind, seems to have no great pattern of consistency in the case of psychiatric symbol definition.

 

We are more fortunate in Freemasonry because we possess a body of ritualistic work which defines many of our symbols in at least one way. This allows us to look at our symbols in two distinct ways, the first being in the way our teachings say and secondly at the common meaning given to the same symbol by the profane. The similarity is usually very close but the range of meanings in the outside world is frequently much broader.

 

When a new mason asks the question about symbols, "what is that?", or "what does that mean?", do we tend to back off? Do we have the feeling that these are 'old' symbols, that really have no meaning in our modern world? If this is the case, then we are in very serious trouble within our Lodges because the Charge at our installations very clearly states that "...it inculcates principles of the purest morality, though veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." We are also told in the same Charge that to penetrate through the veil of the allegories and symbols is to understand the mysteries. While there is a far deeper meaning in the overall pattern of the craft, it is of great value to find some meanings of the individual symbols and to attempt to recall that meaning on each occasion that we see them. This creates the 'repetition' form of learning that begins to modify our life style to become that "better man" we all strive for.

 

One of the problems with the human mind is that it tends to ignore items which it registers frequently. We are the last ones to see our children grow, and need a visitor to bring this to our

attention. So it is, with the jewels worn by the officers of our

Lodges. How many of you have looked at your officers jewels -

really looked. Firstly they are quite detailed, secondly they

frequently have things on them that you were totally unaware of.

 

There are different companies producing jewels and each may embellish the jewels differently, but you can be sure that there is meaning behind practically every identifiable whirl and loop.

In addition to the symbols on the jewel, each of these is suspended from a collar which may also have symbols upon it. Then the Officers also have an apron, often the same as yours, and this has detail on it that we tend to observe when it is first presented to us, but then we never consider it again.

 

What I hope to do in a short period of time, is to look at some of

the jewel, collar, and apron symbols and consider some of the

meanings that are taught us and then also some of meanings which are known to be fairly common in the everyday world. There will be areas where we skip over areas lightly, there will be a few diversions, but I hope that you will consider your Lodge jewels a little differently in the future.

 

A final point before starting is that all masonic symbols are

positive, none are aimed at anything that is not for the good of

the mason as an individual, and through him, for the world at

large. We degrade no symbol and none can ever be considered to be contrary to the high principles we extol. Remember that there is no right or wrong to symbolism - it is what you accept as meaningful to you as a Craftsman. The following are my findings and interpretations and it is quite likely that you will have different interpretations, but I wish to share my findings with you.

 

The Master carries with him, a great symbol. If you are of a York

Mason you will learn that it is immoveable, whereas if you use the Canadian Work, that it is moveable. The square is the symbol of regulated life and actions. It is the masonic rule for correcting and harmonising conduct on principles or morality and virtue, and as a symbol, it is dedicated to the Master. We also identify ourselves with this symbol, because we are taught that squares, levels and perpendiculars are the proper signs to know a mason.

 

We are surrounded by squares in our Lodge for every mason wears at least one although the Immediate Past Master and the Past Masters wear it most obviously. It stands, as one of the Great Lights, in the centre of all our activities and its legs constantly embrace the Worshipful Master. It is repeated in our F.C. salute, our feet positions, our way of moving around the Lodge and our legs when at the altar in our initiation.

 

History tells us that the square, which is an upright with a right

top arm, is the Greek letter gamma. Each one of us knows the

meanings associated with the letter G. In the construction trade,

the square is used for "trueing" stones and "proving" them correct.

 

We can see how easily, the association with truth and virtue could arise. There was the historical belief that the shape of the

ancient world was an oblong square and this is represented in our "squared Lodge."

 

There have been references to the square's meaning as a symbol long before the start of Masonry, as we know it. The Egyptians believed that truth and justice were 'on the square', Confucius in about 500 BC referred to the squareness of actions. Mencius, the Chinese philosopher of about 372 BC refers to square actions. Simonides of Ceos, the Greek lyrical poet of about 600 BC and Aristotle in about 350 BC refer to 'square actions' and associate this with honest dealings, high morality and virtue.

 

The symbol is not original, it is certainly far from new, but it

seems to have a remarkable consistency of meaning.

If we move on to the Immediate Past Master's jewel for a moment we observe that it is identical to the Master's in shape except that pendant from it is the 47th problem of Euclid. It is important to remember that Euclid only proved the Pythagorean theorem of about 300 years earlier. When you consider what the theorem shows it is a multitude of further squares. Squares on sides, mathematically 'squared' numbers and a central closed square, about which all the 'proof' stands. As an emphasis of the square symbol we could see nothing which could do it better. We should know that the properties of this triangular arrangement were first thought to be magical in the relationship they demonstrated. In addition, Pythagoras, being Greek, may have had the Greek letter/symbol G in his mind when he is reputed to have exclaimed 'Eureka' and it is for us to decide if the utility or the symbolism had generated his joy. We learn in our work that we are to be inspired to lov e the arts and sciences by this design and pro of. We should always marvel that such a simple figure could have had such impact on our world.

 

You may think that we should move on to the next set of jewels at this point but hold ... there is more, much more that we can find at this time on the jewels that we have considered - look at the design on them. Now do not think that we will find new figures on all the other jewels but the jewels of the three principal officers are the most embellished and we will stay for a little longer here.

 

In the angle of the square is the sun, radiant with its beams and

with a rather clear face on it. Was this doodling the work of a

metal worker with time on his hands? Of course not, for the

historical significance of the sun as a symbol is an integral part

of all our Lodge work. We refer to the sun in many places and also copy it is many actions. At the opening and closing of the Lodge, all the officers relate their actions to the sun. We walk around our Lodge in the same direction as the sun appears to move across our earth. We travel towards the East, the place of light, after being informed that the Master rules his Lodge as the sun does the day. If you think and possibly are aware, that culture seemed to develop in the East, there was always the suggestion that the source of the sun had inspired this knowledge and culture.

 

Proof is readily available of the frequency of sun-worship as the

first form of contemplation of a deity. Man has always looked

upward for a "source" and the sun met the early criteria of

"supporter" of the life of the world. It is fairly natural that

this early god would be personified by the addition of a face so

that the god could be given more of the human attributes. Even

with our own concept of God, we find the degree of personification relates to the stage of understanding of the race or individual.

 

Do we then have a reminder of that ancient worship on our jewel which is 'a reaching back' to give evidence, albeit erroneous, of the great historical past of the Craft? Perhaps it is also a repetition of the many death and rebirth mysteries and legends of the past .... and the present.

 

Perhaps for us we should remember more the sun as being the symbol of brightness, the opposer of evil. We know that we say in lodge that the rays spread their benign influence and we also must have a constant search for light. In fact the degrees seek 'light', 'more light' and 'further light', and this is given by our three lesser lights, one of which represents the sun as well as the Master. We are told also that the sun is the glory of the Lord, and it governs the day. There is another link in our lod ge with the sun and that is a symbol designated as meaning something else, but the astrological sign for the sun is a point within a circle.

 

While the sun is one clear symbol, we also find the moon with a

face on the jewel. Explain where it is. This symbol appears

elsewhere in our Lodge as one of the Lesser lights and is

represented by the Senior Warden. The moon and sun have many similar characteristics in symbolism, but regularity and stability have the approval of our teachings. These principles are desirable in life both in and our of Lodge, as our Warden states in opening and closing. It is natural that in the absence of the Master (the sun), the moon should rule in his place.

The symbol in the profane world has always indicated measurable states, regularity and is strongly associated with the

death-rebirth mysteries that are continued as the principal theme and lesson in Masonry.

 

Yet another symbol is found on the jewel in the form of a cluster

of seven stars. These are specifically referred to in the Canadian teachings and are an important symbol in that they represent the etherial mansion, veiled from human eyes but the York mason learns only of the star-decked heavens. The significance of these stars which adorn the ceiling of many Lodge rooms is very complex, in that the stars and the number seven are almost constantly in symbolism. The stars themselves, in clusters tend to be associated with order and destiny and so to some degree reinforce the symbolism contained in that of the moon symbolism. When we come to the seven we are almost overwhelmed with the many facts associated with it. The number seven was said to be 'perfect' because it contained the numbers 3 and 4 and was itself indivisible and could not be created by multiplication. This gave it the name of the virgin number. There were seven years to an apprentice ship, there were seven planets known to man of the middl e ages, and there are seven days in a week of which the 7th is the sabbath.

 

The days of the week are named after the seven gods of the Goths, a seventh son has special powers, the Jews swore by the number seven, there was a need for seven witnesses to agreements, and Solomon's temple was said to have been built in seven years. Jericho was encircled seven times by seven priests, and these were the seven liberal arts and sciences know as the trivium a nd quadrivium which were thought to contain the total sum of human knowledge. Seven represents symbolically the combination of the Trinity and four cardinal virtues, it is the number of the basic musical notes, of colours and of the spheres. Seven is related to perfection, to religious truth and also with knowledge. It is hard to find a more

astounding mass of facts associated with a number until we observe that three and five are similar.

 

Within the Lodge we are reminded that it needs seven officers to open the Lodge and those seven steps of the staircase reminding us of the liberal arts and sciences. Jacob's ladder is usually shown with seven rungs of which 3 are considered most exemplary for masons. While then these seven small stars on the jewel are insignificant they are repeated as a symbol at least three times within our Lodges and give us much to think about.

 

Finally we can move on to the jewel of the Senior Warden, the

Level. We meet upon this sign, and we have all been raised from the dead level to the living perpendicular. The symbol, we are taught, shows the principle of equality and reminds us that we are all descended from one stock and possess one nature and it thus justifies our organization as a fraternity of equals. At Pompeii it was discovered that a carving of a level with symbols of death demonstrated an early belief in death as the great levelle.

 

This, is our great experience. We are also told that we are

travelling on a level of time to an undiscovered country from which no traveller returns. This also associates death with levels and this is patterned after associations which exist outside the craft.

 

We observe again on this jewel, the sun, moon and seven stars and as we move to the Junior Wardens Jewel will see them yet again. The Junior Warden's Jewel is of course the plumb referred to in our lectures as the symbol of rectitude and uprightness. A fairly simple relationship to be sure. There is a link with this jewel and Jacob's ladder stretching between heaven and earth and stressing a morality which should be practised. We are instructed in our steps to stand erect and charged to act upon this symbol as we leave Lodge. This association is identical within and without the Lodge.

 

We now move to a few of the simpler symbols worn as jewels by our officers, and while some simply indicate their role they have a few meanings on which we may think.

 

The doves of the deacons have long had two symbolic meanings, that of a messenger and that of peace. The dove we see in Lodge has the sprig of olive in its beak and is clearly a representative of Noah who used it as a messenger of good tidings. The deacons jewel was, in an earlier period, a representation of the God Hermes or Mercury who was again the messenger of the ancient gods. In the Christian faith the dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. This jewel then is really a representation of the work to be performed but with

overtones of the early church and the Bible.

 

The stewards wear and carry the cornucopia which is a

representation of the horn of the goat which, in legend, suckled

the infant Jupiter. The horn symbolises strength and abundance and suggests the supply of food as it is usually displayed full of fruits. In our Lodges this is associated with those responsible for satisfying the "inner man" after regular meetings are concluded. As in the case of Amalthea the goat with the "visiting Jupiter", the supply is supposed to be particularly abundant in the presence of visitors.

 

The organist wears the lyre, a six stringed instrument associated with Turpsichore, the Goddess of music and is the symbol of musical accomplishment. It should constantly remind us of the contribution that music can make to not only our Lodge but our total lives.

 

The chaplain wears what is perhaps the most important symbol within our Lodge, for his jewel portrays the open volume of Sacred Law, without which no Lodge can operate. This symbol expresses our dedication to the God in whom we have a personal belief. It guides us in the erection of our spiritual building and points out our whole duty. It is the rule and guide to our faith and is kept in our hearts between our meetings. The Bible on the jewel is open upon a triangle which has additional symbolism for th e Christian mason in that it represents the trinity. For all masons the triangle can remind us of the three moral virtues, the principle tenets of our profession, the knocks, the ruffians, the Great Lights, the lesser lights, the three degrees, the three Grand Masters, God and the Holy St.'s John and the steps, both our individual ones and those upon which the Master presides. There are so many references to the number three that it rivals the number s even for sheer volume. Suffice it to say that the symbolism of this particular jewel is particularly meaningful to masons, and each should have his own particular interpretation without any suggestion that this should be imposed on others.

 

Again at this point you should observe the positive nature of the symbols and the major influence they should have upon our thoughts.

 

The registrar has a simple scroll about his neck which signifies

the historical record of events. This is a reminder to each one of us that our actions make an impression on the great record of existence and we should strive to keep our book in correct balance.

 

The secretary wears the crossed quills which seem to be the

international symbol of a secretary. The saltire pattern, the bows and the trailing ends have no recorded significance, but, we all know this jewel indicates an onerous task performed by many sound Brethren.

 

The treasurer has crossed keys rather than quills and these are, of course, to the money chest of the Lodge. This is simply a role indicator but these keys should remind us of "that excellent key - a Freemason's tongue which should speak well of a Brother present or absent. When this cannot be done, adopt the excellent virtue of the Craft - SILENCE.

 

The secretary-treasurer has a combination of a crossed key and

quill but I will not go into which one is on top.

 

The jewel of the Director of Ceremonies is the crossed batons.

These are symbols of the batons of command which were presented on the field of battle to an outstanding survivor. Possibly this is why this office is held by Past Masters.

The Inner Guard and the Tyler both have swords, differing only in that the tyler has one whereas the Inner Guard has two. These have always been symbols of a protector and in particular have been associated with the defence of a faith. The sword has the reputation of warding off evil because in the inverted position it forms a cross. In addition, within the Lodge, we know that the Tyler's sword guards the Constitution and is a constant reminder to guard our thoughts, words, and deeds, remembering the mas onic virtues of silence and circumspection.

 

Having looked at the jewels we should also observe the collars from which they are suspended, because these in some cases have symbols.

 

The principal symbols are the blazing star the entwined snakes and knots. The blazing star pattern used, is usually that of the

"pentalpha", or five pointed star with intermediate flames. This

star is primarily the symbol of divine providence and can be found in our mosaic pavement. The five points should remind us also of other masonic "fives". The five orders of arch itecture, the five points of fellowship, the five senses and the five who must be present in order for a Lodge to be held. The star is also said to represent the Morning Star which is yet another symbol of rebirth which is so significant to each of us.

I should point out that there is a six pointed star or hexalpha

which is also known as the "Glory". This six pointed star is the

Seal of Solomon and also the Star of David. This star is also

represented on the carpet at times and there is distinct confusion in the texts over which star is THE star to use. The primary symbolic meaning of the six pointed star is the universe as an entity.

 

Also to be found on the collar is this complex looping which shows a serpent swallowing its tail, a common symbol of eternity and in many cases associated with wisdom. The double entwined never ending loops are similarly symbols of eternity but have the additional meanings ascribed to them of vibrant energy and active life. These symbols are worthy of our contemplation in relation to the stability and teachings of the Craft.

 

We then hear the next symbol although modern methods sometimes deny us the sound which adorns the apron, the seven chained tassel.

 

This is a fairly late addition and is thought to be more a

decorative copying of the ends of the original longer and centrally tied ribbon or belt. The changing to tassels was slowly developed and perhaps we could turn our thoughts again to the symbolism of the number seven, already related for the Masters jewel. In addition to the tassels we have the buttons which contain ou principal symbols again. Here the only addition is the compasses which I leave to your personal investigation for our teaching clearly suggests that they are for the craft.

 

Before closing we should end with a symbol of utility which would make Freud turn in his grave, for the standard hook on an apron is a snake. While we will accept 'wisdom', it is possibly simply a decorated, very functional 'hook', with no great thought put into it. We certainly do not all have one at any rate.

These are then the jewels of the Lodge, the collar and aprons worn by our officers and perhaps they have shown a little more than you have normally noticed. If you would look at the Jewels in the next few Lodges you attend, you will find similarities and differences.

 

These will take on a new meaning because you have looked, and possibly you may find more meaning in various aspects of your personal masonry by contemplation of the new symbols you find or the old ones that you know. I sincerely hope so.

 

****************

 

The Mosaic Pavement by GABRIEL VASILE OLTEAN

Expert Inspector of NGLR for Western Region; Past Worshipful Master, ZAMOLXIS Lodge, No. 182, Deva

 

"The interior decoration of a masonic lodge comprises ornaments, accessories and insignia. The ornaments are: the mosaic on the floor - respresenting spirt and matter, the shining star and the laced edge, which remind us always the first of the presence of God and the second of the protective wall" - cites Charles W Leadbeater from the ritual of mixed masonry in his work "Freemasonry - Rites and Initiations."

 

In the center of the Temple, on the ground, there is a rectangular floor, with black and white tiles, called the mosaic pavement (theoretically, cubes seen perspectivally), where a relgaion obtains between the sides, either 2:1 (the long square) or 1.618.../1 (the golden number), thus coming up with a surface proportional to the total area of the Lodge. Thus we see that practically the moasica, placed in the center of the Lodge is a microcosmic representation of the whole of creation and is by itself a sacred central area - whence the interdiction to ever step on the mosaic when the work of the Lodge is underway. The pavement symbolizes the indisociable operative complementarity of the two cosmic principles: the initiate must know how no longer let himself be dominated by the confrontation between positive and negative forces, to know (it is indispensable) how to use it, to master it so as to work constructively.

 

In Ancient Egypt, the mosaic was never stepped on except by a candidate and the masters of ceremony, and only at precise moments (by the Past Worshipful Master for the fulfilment of his tasks, by the First Expert when he took the light of the sacred fire, or by the sexton when he spread frankincense on the altar of the Temple. An extremely important aspect of the mosaic pavement is that, being placed in the middle of the Temple, framed by the three colonettes (which represent the Worshipful Master, the Senior and Junior Wardens), must be avoided by walking in a square, in a symbolic sense. The current of energy cross the floor, some along the length, some along the width, in lines that remind of the warp of a canvas.

 

Upon opening the work, the Trestle Board is depicted on this pavement, which varies with the first three degrees. The mosaic pavement signifies different things according to the traditional mode of work in the lodge, or the masonic rite employed.

The French Rite specifies that the pavement adorned the threshold of the geat porch of the Temple and showed that this is one of the ornaments of the Lodge, being the emblem of the intimate union among masons. Here it was explained to the Apprentice that he "could not stand on the mosaic pavement to contemplate the interior of the edifice". This started above from the seventh step, as we can well conclude by an attentive research of the Trestle Boards of the first two degrees.

The Rectified Scottish Rite speaks too little of this pavement, noting that "the mosaic pavement adorns the threshold of the great veranda of the Temple. It covers the entry to the subterranean part of the Temple between the two columns, to a crypt that held holy idols and especially the pledge of the alliance between the chosen people and the Creator: the Royal Ark (Ark of the Covenant).

 

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite does not describe in any way this ornament. As to the decoration of the Lodge, it is said however "the floor of the lodge is the pavement in alternative black and white squares. When it is thus decorated, a pavement is achieved wit the shape of a long square, placed in the center of the Lodge, decorated on the model of the latter".

 

The York Rite affirms that "the mosaic pavement represents the floor of the Temple of Solomon", having the added laced edge. It is obvious enough that it is about a symbolic contribution in what regards the floor of the Lodge, because in the Bible the floor of the Temple isn't described as an series of black and white squares: "and the floor of the Temple was made from cypress planks" (3 Kings 6:15).

 

Whereas in the Emulation Rite (the Anglo-Saxon Rites are more precise in their descriptions) specifies that "the mosaic pavement may rightly be considered the wondrous tiling of a freemason Lodge due to its diversity and regularity. Thus the diversity of beings and objects in the world surfaces, as well the ensouled ones as those that are not". In the complementary course of the Rite of Emulation (in the fifth part) it is specified: "our lodge is adorned with mosaic pavement to mark the uncertainty of all terrestrial vanities... as we step on this mosaic, our thought must return to the original idea that we imitate and act as honorable men and masons". Mosaic pavement is presented as an image of faith, harmony, understanding..

Outside the definitions offered by different masonic rites, the mosaic pavement may be approached under many aspect, two of which seem edifying to us:

• The floor of the Lodge,

• The route of squares for the tracing of planes,

When we approach the mosaic pavement as floor of the Lodge, we are forced to distinguish between the pavement of operative and speculative Lodges.

 

In the first case, we specify that Lodges were usually annexes to the construction site, attached to the construction on the Southern side of the Work (to receive more light and to have the wall of the edifice for protection. It is extremely clear and evident that in this case no floor was imposed (nor would any be functional). The tiling that constitutes the mosaic is fragile in contradiction with the dimensions (weight) of the tools of freemasons (sledgehammers were very heavy). If we are talking about a surface for permanent cutting and polishing of rock, we can easily imagine that the floor of such a place was permanently covered by fragments, remains, abrasive dust. Not in the last place, we must note the fact that mosaic was principally fixed in especially prepared mortar in which designs were first marked that etched the image or drawing that was the purpose of the mosaic.

 

In the other approach, that of the speculative Lodges, a symbolic rug laid in squares may be laid on the floor, or it may be build from alternating black and white tiles, the decision being that of the Lodge. The notionc of mosaic pavement cannot be discussed before the appearance of Grand Lodges.

 

As a route of squares - as network of right angles - to trace planes is another mode of approach specific to operative lodges, which must distinguish:

A directory route of the edifice that must be understood after we describe the Medieval constructin site at the beginning of the work: on a leveled and cleared surface (treated with charcoal), a scheme of the main lines of the edifice was traced with the help of a rope covered in chalk. There are documents to this effect that attest the describe practice, which reminds of certain answers from the masonic catechism. To the question: "how do you serve your Master?", there is the answer: "with charcoal, chalk and clay".

 

A technical assistance set of squares would be another variant of this approach. An amenably arranged surface, spread in regular squares through lines traced for inumerable uses, the first and most important being that of assembly table. It also served to establish easily a series of angles, in an approximate way that was sufficient for a mason (taking four divisions on a line, and on the perpendicular seven at one extremity, a reasaonbly 60° angle is obtained). In fact, we can imagine the banal math copybook paper that has helped us trace with more facility (and more precision) the geometrical shapes that tortured (or didn't) us in the geometry problems in elementary school.

 

The black and white, chessboard-like pavement is thus the mosaic pavement. In what pertains to the term "mosaic", there are two different opinions, one refering to Moses and one to the technique of decoration. Each school has its pros and cons, more or less logical and valid.

 

"The canvas of ours lives is a mixed thread, the good together with the bad" wrote Shakespeare. Anything is characterized by a combination of good and bad, light and shadow, joy and sadness, positive and negative, yin and yang. What is good for me may be bad for you, pleasure is generated by pain, etc.

 

Following the thread of the current Paper, we may say with certainty that the mosaic is not mart of the elements of Judaic architecture and that the mosaic pavement is a contribution of modern speculative Masonry, operative lodges never having been squared this way. It is obvious that the current exposition is not and does not wish to be an exhaustive work. It is a somewhat complex approach of an important symbol in the decoration of the masonic Temple and it wishes in fact to the a paper addressing an open question:

- The mosaic pavement is the floor of the Lodge (as the rituals consider it) or is it the space limited by the three pillars Power, Wisdom, and Beauty?

A good thought accompanied by the triple brotherly accolade!

 

Copyright Forum Masonic

 

The blazing star pattern used, is usually that of the "pentalpha", or five pointed star with intermediate flames. This star is primarily the symbol of divine providence and can be found in our mosaic pavement. The five points should remind us also of other masonic "fives". The five orders of arch itecture, the five points of fellowship, the five senses and the five who must be present in order for a Lodge to be held. The star is also said to represent the Morning Star which is yet another symbol of rebirth which is so significant to each of us.

 

I should point out that there is a six pointed star or hexalpha which is also known as the "Glory". This six pointed star is the

 

Seal of Solomon and also the Star of David. This star is also represented on the carpet at times and there is distinct confusion in the texts over which star is THE star to use. The primary symbolic meaning of the six pointed star is the universe as an entity.

Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635. It was built near the now demolished Greenwich Palace, a few miles downriver from the City of London and is now in the London borough of Greenwich. It presently forms a central focus of what is now the Old Royal Naval College with a grand vista leading to the River Thames. The Queen's House architect, Inigo Jones, was commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark in 1616 and again to finish the house in 1635 by Queen Henrietta Maria. The Queen's House was commissioned by both Anne and Henrietta as a place to display artworks they had accumulated and commissioned; this includes a ceiling of the Great Hall that features a work by Orazio Gentileschi titled Allegory of Peace and the Arts.

 

Queen's House is one of the most important buildings in British architectural history, due to it being the first consciously classical building to have been constructed in the country. It was Jones's first major commission after returning from his 1613–1615 grand tour[1] of Roman, Renaissance, and Palladian architecture in Italy. Some earlier English buildings, such as Longleat and Burghley House, had made borrowings from the classical style, but the structure of these buildings was not informed by an understanding of classical precedents. Queen's House would have appeared revolutionary during this period. Although it diverges from the mathematical constraints of Palladio, Jones is often credited with the introduction of Palladianism with the construction of the Queen's House. Jones' unique architecture of the Queen's House also includes features like the Tulip Stairs, an intricate wrought iron staircase that holds itself up, and the Great Hall, a perfect cube.

 

After its brief use as a home for Royalty, the Queen's House was renovated into the Royal Hospital for Seamen. Today the building is both a Grade I listed building and a scheduled monument; A status that includes the 115-foot-wide (35 m) axial vista to the River Thames. The house is now part of the National Maritime Museum and is used to display parts of its substantial collection of maritime paintings and portraits.

 

Early history

Queen's House is located in Greenwich, London. It was built as an adjunct to the Tudor Palace of Greenwich, previously known before its redevelopment by Henry VII, as the Palace of Placentia; Which was a rambling, red-brick, building in a vernacular style. This would have presented a dramatic contrast of appearance to the newer, white-painted House. The original building was intended as a pavilion with a bridge over the London-Dover road, running between high walls through the park of the palace. Construction of the house began in 1616, but work on the house stopped in April 1618 when Anne became ill and died the following year. Work restarted when the house was given to the queen consort, Henrietta Maria, in 1629 by King Charles I. The house was structurally complete by 1635.

 

However, the house's original use was short, no more than seven years; The English Civil War began in 1642 and swept away the court culture from which it sprang. Although some of the house's interiors survive, including three ceilings and some wall decorations, none of the interior remains in its original state. The process of dismantling the house began as early as 1662, when masons removed a niche and term figures and a chimneypiece.

 

Artworks that had been commissioned by Charles I for the house, now reside elsewhere; These include a ceiling panel by Orazio Gentileschi, Allegory of Peace and the Arts, which is now installed at Marlborough House, London, a large Finding of Moses, now on loan from a private collection to the National Gallery, London, and a matching Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, still in the Royal Collection.

 

The Queen's House, though it was scarcely being used, provided the distant focal centre for Sir Christopher Wren's Greenwich Hospital, with a logic and grandeur that has seemed inevitable to architectural historians but in fact depended on Mary II's insistence that the vista to the water from the Queen's House not be impaired.

 

Architecture

Built by Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century, the Queen's House is England's first classical building. Inigo Jones was commissioned by Anne of Denmark in 1616 to build the unique house. At her death in 1619, the house was unfinished. Jones completed the house for Queen Henrietta Maria in 1635. The Queen's House is unique in style and characteristics compared to other English buildings of the time. Jones created a first-floor central bridge that joined the two halves of the building. Inigo Jones was heavily influenced by Italian Renaissance architecture and the Palladian style, created by Andrea Palladio. Jones applied the characteristics of harmony, detail, and proportion to the commission. Rather than being in the traditional, red-brick Tudor style like the then existing palace, the house is white and is known for its elegant proportions. Jones felt compelled to reflect political circumstances of the time through his use of his Orders, reflected in his "Roman Sketchbook" notes. In early designs of the Queen's house, Jones experimented with using the Corinthian Order in public, which at the time was used as court architecture and was viewed as "masculine and unaffected".

 

Two preliminary drawings have been associated with Anne of Denmark's commission. The first plan includes a rectangular villa with a circular staircase adjacent to a vaulted square hall with six pilasters along the exterior. The second plan is composed of an H-shaped building with a columnar bay and a balcony, which fits two of the elevations of the Queen's House. The completed Queen's House, finished under the request of Queen Henrietta Maria, reflects a public restraint mentioned in Jones' "Roman Sketchbook". Between 1632 and 1635 a central loggia was added to the south front and Columns were limited to this area. The columns were switched from Corinthian to Ionic to reflect the strictures of Serlio, being made for matrons.

 

Inigo Jones' design is famous for two of its aspects: the Great Hall and the Tulip Staircase. The Great Hall is the centerpiece of the Queen's House and holds a first-floor gallery that overlooks geometric-styled black and white marble flooring. The Great Hall is recognizable and innovative for its architecture; The shape of this hall is perfect cube, measuring 40 ft in each direction. Much like Jones' inspiration for the rest of the Queen's House, Jones used the rules of proportion created by Palladio.

 

The Tulip Staircase was an unusual feature during this period and the first of its kind. Made of ornate wrought iron, it is Britain's first geometric and unsupported staircase. Each tread is cantilevered from the wall and supported by the step below, a design invented by the mason, Nicholas Stone. Each step is interlocked along the bottom of the riser. Jones found inspiration for the staircase, and the glass lantern above, from Palladio's Carita Monastery, where he noted that the staircases with a void in the center "succeed very well because they can have light from above". Jones hired Nicholas Stone to lay the black and white flooring which mirrored the design of the ceiling.

 

Patron

Anne of Denmark, the wife of James I of England, was an important patron of the arts. Anne commissioned her frequent collaborator, Inigo Jones, to refurbish the Queen's House in Greenwich. Although the Queen's House was not completed before her death in 1619, Anne was able to use the palace at Greenwich as a personal gallery before her death. Both James I and Anne had private galleries and fashioned them in similar ways. Jemma Field describes the spaces as a place of political significance; "All objects and furnishings were appraised as signs of Stuart wealth, merit, and honour". Anne of Denmark's project may have been influenced by her knowledge of garden buildings and hunting lodges in Denmark, and her brother Christian IV of Denmark sent two Danish stonemasons to work for her at Greenwich for nine months.

 

Queen Henrietta Maria

Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, son of Anne and James, inherited the rights to Greenwich Park in 1629. She commissioned Inigo Jones to return and finish the Queen's House between approximately 1629 and 1638. As an important patron for contemporary artists, Henrietta acquired and commissioned many works of art for the Queen's House. Henrietta used the palace as a "House of Delights" and filled the home with spectacular pieces of art, including the Great Ceiling.

 

Allegory of Peace and the Arts (Ceiling by Orazio Gentileschi)

Orazio Gentileschi, a favorite at the court of Charles I, was commissioned by Queen Henrietta Maria to decorate her "House of Delights". By Gentileschi's death in 1639, the Queen's House contained about half of Gentileschi's English works, including the ceiling of the Great Hall from 1635 to 1638. The central work of this hall features the Allegory of Peace and the Arts, a central tondo surrounded by eight other canvases. The ceiling creates a visual celebration of the reign of King Charles I and his encouragement of peace and the liberal arts. Gentileschi Illuminates the taste and patronage of Henrietta Marie by embodying the power of women throughout the ceiling, all but one of the twenty-six figures are women.

 

The composition of the ceiling includes a large central tondo with four rectangular canvases on each side of the ceiling and four smaller tondos on the corners. The central tondo, the personification of Peace is depicted floating on a cloud and is surrounded by the figures representing the Liberal Arts, Victory, and Fortune. The surrounding panels depict the nine Muses, and the personifications of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Music. The image of Peace, in the central tondo, is seated on a cloud and holding an olive branch in one hand and a staff in the other, embodying the message that Peace is a product of good government and rule because of the encouragement of knowledge, learning, creativity while remaining within the realm of Reason. Peace, the only male figure, is positioned in the center of the panel portraying him as the most important and the central quality by allowing the others to be around him. The other twelve females are the personifications of the trivium(Grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and quadrivium(arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry) that make up the Liberal Arts.

 

In 1708, Gentileschi's series of nine paintings were removed, given by Queen Anne to Sarah Churchhill. They were installed in Marlborough House, St James, where they can still be viewed today.

 

For the first time since 1639, when Gentileschi worked on the ceiling, another artist has recently worked on the ceiling, Turner Prize winner, Richard Wright. In 2016, Wright and his team of five assistants worked together to fill the empty spaces of the ceiling left behind by the Gentileschi panels. The team used a series of scaffolded flat beds to support them while they transferred a sketch to the ceiling, applied size to the outline, and then covered it with gold leaf. Wright took influence from the geometric patterning on the floor, the intricate details of the tulip staircase, and created a ceiling that reflects the Queen's House's geometry, beauty, and intracity.

 

Construction of the Greenwich Hospital

Although the house survived as an official building, being used for the lying-in-state of Commonwealth Generals-at-Sea Richard Dean (1653) and Robert Blake (1657), the main palace was progressively demolished between 1660 and 1690. Between 1696 and 1751, to the master-plan of Sir Christopher Wren, the palace was replaced by the Royal Hospital for Seamen (now referred to as the Old Royal Naval College). Due to the positioning of Queen's House, and Queen Mary II's request that it retain its view of the river, Wren's Hospital architectural design was composed of two matching pairs of courts that were separated by a grand 'visto' the exact width of the house(115 ft).

 

Wren's first plan, which was blocking the view to the Thames, became known to history as "Christopher Wren's faux pas". The whole ensemble at Greenwich forms an architectural vista that stretches from the Thames to Greenwich Park, and is one of the principal features that in 1997 led UNESCO to inscribe 'Maritime Greenwich' as a World Heritage Site.

 

19th-century additions

From 1806 the house was used as the center of the Royal Hospital School for the sons of seamen. This change in use necessitated new accommodations; Wings and a flanking pair were added to east and west and connected to the house by colonnades (designed by London Docks architect Daniel Asher Alexander). In 1933, the school moved to Holbrook, Suffolk and it's Greenwich buildings, including the house, were converted and restored; They became the new National Maritime Museum (NMM), created by Act of Parliament in 1934 and opened in 1937.

 

Following construction of the cut-and-cover tunnel between Greenwich and Maze Hill stations, the grounds immediately to the north of the house were reinstated in the late 1870s. The tunnel comprised the continuation of the London and Greenwich Railway and opened in 1878.

 

Recent years

In 2012, the grounds to the south of the Queen's House were used to house a stadium for the equestrian events of the Olympic Games. The grounds were used to stage the modern pentathlon, while the Queen's House in particular was used as a VIP center for the games.

 

Work to prepare the Queen's House involved some internal re-modelling and work on the lead roof to prepare it for security and camera installations.[citation needed] The house underwent a 14-month restoration beginning in 2015, and reopened on 11 October 2016. The house had previously been restored between 1986 and 1999, with contemporary insertions that modernised the building. The modernization created controversial due to the new ceiling in the main hall created by artist Richard Wright, a Turner prize winner. In some quarters, it provoked some debate: an editorial in The Burlington Magazine, November 1995, alluded to "the recent transformation of the Queen's House into a theme-park interior of fake furniture and fireplaces, tatty modern plaster casts and clip-on chandeliers".

 

Current use

The house is now primarily used to display the museum's substantial collection of marine paintings and portraits of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, and for other public and private events. It is normally open to the public daily, free of charge, as well as other museum galleries and the seventeenth-century Royal Observatory, Greenwich, which is also part of the National Maritime Museum.

 

In Autumn 2022, a 1768 painting by the artist Tilly Kettle went on permanent display. The painting depicts Sir Samuel Cornish, 1st Baronet, Richard Kempenfelt and Thomas Parry on HMS Norfolk and was purchased by the National Maritime Museum, with assistance from the Society for Nautical Research.

Cette pièce fut une des premières pièces à recevoir son décor : c'était la Chambre du Maître,

Antoine III de Clermont. Décorée de très beau médaillons représentant les 7 Arts Libéraux :

- les trois matières littéraires qui constituent ce qu'on appelle le trivium : la logique, la rhétorique, la grammaire

- les quatre matières scientifiques qui constituent le quadrivium : la musique, la géométrie, l'arithmétique et l'astronomie

 

Les arts libéraux étaient les principales matières enseignées à l'école à l'Antiquité et au Moyen-âge.

Puis, on a rajouté un 8ème médaillon avec Apollon et les 9 muses, divinités qui inspiraient et

protégeaient les artistes dans la tradition gréco-romaine.

 

Ces médaillons sur enduit sec, sont attribués à l'école de Fontainebleau ; le fruit d'un travail

entre Le Primatice et son élève et exécuteur testamentaire Ruggiero de Ruggieri. Le huitième serait attribué au Maître de Flore, autre élève du Primatice.

 

Ces œuvres ont été peu restaurées et sont dans un état de conservation exemplaire, seuls les cadres et le fond du décor de grotesques ont été remaniés au 19ème siècle. Des perroquets ainsi qu'un singe ont été peints en sachant que la reine Catherine de Médicis, épouse d'Henri II, aimait s'entourer de ces animaux...

Le plafond du 16ème siècle est un damier de 9 caissons, il est sans doute un des plus beaux de ce château. Dans son état d'origine, il a certes souffert de quelques infiltrations mais il n'a pas été retouché. La richesse de la polychromie est typique de cette époque Renaissance, des éléments moulés ont été insérés pour accentuer l'effet de profondeur.

 

Enfin, Antoine III a fait rajouter des médaillons, plus précisément des cartouches en papier mâché, peints avec les 12 signes du zodiaque, le plus visible de tous étant celui du poisson au-dessus du lit ou le lion. Rares exemples de cartouches et rosaces en papier mâché datant du 16ème siècle qui sont actuellement répertoriés en France.

 

Avant de quitter la pièce, nous noterons la présence de cette importante cheminée à griffe de lion, dont le décor était à la mode au 16ème siècle. Sur sa face vous pouvez voir peinte une ruche enflammée que le feu ne parvient pas à consumer d'où l'inscription latine en dessous "URIT NON CONSUMIT" qui signifie elle brûle sans se consumer. Certain y voit une allusion à l'état du royaume déchiré par les guerres de religions, la référence au nouveau mode de gouvernement mis en place à partir de la régence de Catherine de Médicis, la reine des abeilles et son essaim ou tout simplement une allégorie pour dire la persévérance dans les épreuves...

 

Source :

 

Poursuivez votre visite, ce n'est pas terminé... Néanmoins, je vous invite à jeter un coup d'œil par la fenêtre, un agréable panorama sur les jardins à l'Anglaise vous y attend.

 

Source : www.guidigo.com/Web/Le-chateau-d-Ancy-le-Franc

Masonic Tracing Boards: youtu.be/m-dc96wCxWs

 

Elmvale Masonic Temple 77 Queen Street West Elmvale Ontario.

 

Masonic Tracing Board Decoded & Explained: youtu.be/9exPJ6LAjA8

 

www.niagaramasons.com/Info%20Stuff/The%20Winding%20Stairc...

 

Museum of Freemasonry - Masonic Library

 

Lecture: The Legend Of The Winding Stairs

 

In an investigation of the symbolism of the winding stairs, we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to there origin, there number, the objects which they recall, and there termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an assent upon them was intended to accomplish.

 

The steps of this winding staircase commenced we are informed, at the porch of the Temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of Masonic symbolism than that the Temple was the representative of the world purified by the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the Temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the Temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a mason, and to be born into the world of Masonic light, are all synonymous terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the winding stairs begins.

 

The Apprentice having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his Masonic life. But the first degree in masonry, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Masonry. the lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees.

 

As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the porch from the sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labour here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches the end of which is to be in the possession of divine truth. The winding stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the porch and between the pillars of strength and establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty placed before him. He cannot stand still; his destiny requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him

 

The numbers of these steps in all the systems is odd. The coincidence is at least curious that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; so that commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the masons from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the Masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers, and while three, five, seven, and nine, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, or eight. The odd number of stairs was therefore intended to symbolise the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain.

 

As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. The Tracing-boards of the nineteenth century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The prestonian lectures, used at the beginning of the century gave the whole number of thirty-eight. the error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was later corrected. At the union of the two Grand Lodges of England the number was reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven.

 

At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organisation of the order of which he has become a member. But the information here given, is barren, and unworthy of his labour. The rank of the officers, and the required number can give no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony.

 

The reference to the organisation of the Masonic institution is intended to remind us of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilisation, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition. Masonry itself is the result of civilisation; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition to mankind.

 

All the monuments of antiquity prove that as man emerged from the savage to the social state then came the invention of architecture. As architecture developed as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the harshness of the seasons, with the mechanical arts connected with it, for as we began to erect solid and more stately edifices of stone, they imitated the parts which necessity had introduced into the primitive huts. and adapted them to there temples, which, although at first simple and rude, were in the course of time, and by the ingenuity of succeeding architects, wrought and improved to such a degree of perfection on different models, that each was by way of eminence, denominated an order of architecture.

 

Advancing in his progress the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive al our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is closely connected with operative instruction of Masonry, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the winding stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge

 

So far, then the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessarry and useful member of society. Still must he go onward and forward. the stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and further wisdoms are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber the abiding-place of truth, be reached.

 

In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolesed by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Masony is an institution of olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learningis one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.

 

In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These seven arts were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any question which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature.

 

But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the winding stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are truth, or the approximation to which it will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of Masonic symbolism that the Mason is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labours, is symbolised by the Word, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of nature, of God, and of man's relation to them, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. Only at the end of this life shall he know the origin of life.

 

The middle chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the Word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.G.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring Mason; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but he must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.

 

It is then, as a symbol, and as a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the winding stairs. if we attempt to adopt it as a historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire to thus impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as a historical narrative without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsman were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the Temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a winding staircase to the place where the wages of labour were received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life, in the full fruition of manhood, the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek truth and knowledge; to believe this, is to believe and to know the true design of Speculative Masonry, the only design which makes it worthy of a good and wise man's study.

 

2nd degree fellowcraft tracing board illustration.

 

On our way to the Sanctum Sanctorum, the newly made Mason undertakes a passage through what is commonly called the Middle Chamber. The reference into the middle way is through the temple of Solomon, and the pathway to the Holy of Holies, the adytum in which the Holy Ark of the covenant resides at the the Kodesh Hakodashim, or the place in which deity dwells. In that journey through the middle space, the Second degree brother is introduced to some of the more seemingly secular influenced aspects of the fraternity that begin to take on a double, or symbolic, meaning. On their surface, the basic notions of these things are obvious, but not until you start to look at them closely, at their deeper meanings, that we start to see their relationships to other more esoteric ideas. This is similar to religious traditions where withing one religious text there can be multiple layers of meaning, and multiple ways of interpretation which can lead to an allegorical, a moral, or a mystical meaning.

 

Indeed, as the degree is symbolically in King Solomon’s Temple, so to can it be seen as a symbolic metaphor to our own internal path, what Joseph Campbell calls the hero quest, and where you “leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height.”[1]

 

This is not to assume that the Masonic degrees have a similar relevancy to sacred or Masonic symbols, tracing board, second degree, 2 degreespiritual texts, though some could argue that their significance is almost as powerful to some observants. It is a system of morality that strives to make good men better, which runs nearly in parallel with the many Volumes of the Sacred Law which seeks similar outcomes to achieve as it outlines and instructs its path to elevation. Whether its salvation or spiritual awakening the holy books seek to instruct its adherents to live better lives through their faith, the same that Freemasonry strives to through its practice – to make those good men better. In that process of making the good man a candidate for the degrees is made an entered apprentice, symbolically as he ascends Jacob’s ladder. Once at the top, he is presented a series of three groups of symbols which are set before him to become a Second Degree mason so as they may observe and contemplate them in their path of progression, their hero’s quest, to the third degree.

 

The story of the degree, from Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor*, picks up after the passage between the twin pillars of the degree with the conductor delivering this instruction:

 

Brother, we will pursue our journey. The next thing that attracts our attention is the winding stairs which lead to the Middle Chamber of King Solomon’s Temple, consisting of three, five, and seven steps.

 

The first three allude to the three principal stages of human life, namely, youth, manhood, and old age. In youth, as Entered Apprentices, we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood, as Fellow Crafts, we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in old age, as Master Masons, we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.

 

They also allude to the three principal supports in Masonry, namely, Wisdom, Strength. and Beauty; for it is necessary that there should be wisdom to contrive, strength to support, and beauty to adorn all great and important undertakings.

 

They further allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.

 

Let’s pause here and consider what some of the deeper meanings of these first steps infer. The first segment is fairly straight forward; with narrative telling us that the three steps allude to the three stages of human life – Youth, Manhood, and Old Age.

 

Youth is defined as:

Young persons, collectively.

A young person; especially, a young man.

The quality or state of being young; youthfulness; juvenility.

The part of life that succeeds to childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to manhood.

 

from ThinkExist.com

This is a pretty straight forward idea, especially as it says to us that “we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge”, but how does this apply to an older initiate, someone who is no longer in his youth. Is it a wistful thought to what was achieved when younger and in still in school? Taken on a deeper level, it could allude to the idea of the degree itself, the First degree being synonymous to mean that in the first, the candidate comes to the lodge as a youth (despite his chronological or physical age) with a clean slate of perception and a clean pallet of interpretation. In a sense, he comes as blank slate to its teachings or to the ideas before him. The degree being his introduction from exterior life to interior life which ushers him both into the fraternity and into the concept of the undertaking. Pike, in the first degree lecture in Morals and Dogma, calls this the focusing of the aspirants “unregulated force” – the channel by which they constrain their previously raw, infantile state, into that of a focused and youthful aspirant no matter their age.

 

Next, the candidate enters into his Manhood, more literally the 2nd degree, of which the ceremony says of it “we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves” which is a really active process to live by. We, in essence, are to achieve much by way of our doing, essentially, the work of our daily life towards our deity in worship and practice, our community in which we live and reside, but more specifically as we apply it to ourselves in continuing to apply what we’ve learned in our youth to this state of existence.

 

The Free Dictionary defines Manhood as:

1. The state or time of being an adult male human.

2. The composite of qualities, such as courage, determination, and vigor, often thought to be appropriate to a man.

3. Adult males considered as a group; men.

4. The state of being human.

 

In the third entry, we can take much from it beyond it simply being our middle state of being. It is in fact our ability to BE in the first place, our SELF in daily practice. Interesting as this is, the second degree in which our further education takes place is not only about the practice of our youth but also our ability to learn and apply that education to our life.

 

Campbell says of the age progression that “As a child, you are brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and you are dependant on others. All this has to be transcended when you come to maturity, so that you can live not in dependency but with self-responsible authority.”[2] This is, in essence, the heart of the three degree progression and the fundamental of the three steps – he becoming a man (or woman, respecting your discipline)!

 

Old age is a bit more of a troubling and complex issue. So often in modern society we look at old age as a point of retirement where work and physical activity dramatically changes or diminishes. In this description, the idea of old age holds true in that the degree says of old age that in it “we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality”

 

There are several interesting meanings we can take from this especially that it is in the degrees that these physical changes are metaphorically said to take place which can become a literal interpretation, and that once attained the Master Mason can live through them – literally to reflect on the life well spent. What’s troubling here is that the major portion of the work of the lodge is spent in the third degree and a caution must be considered so as to not see the work of the Master Mason as just one of reflection and of casual rest lest no work, as described in Manhood, be completed.

 

Old Age is essentially defined as ones age nearing or passing the average life span of human beings, and thus at the end of the human life cycle. In the U.S. this is considered to be 78 years old giving a distinct impression as to when one should then become a True Master. It really is at a twilight of life period, one of great age and maturity where little change and much reflection takes place. This gives us an interesting perspective on the meaning as it implies a near end of physical life period of time which squares with the degrees lesson as the period of reflection of a life well spent. We become the Master of our all, ready to pass our knowledge on to the next generation.

 

With this vantage, we can take pause to deeply consider that our daily working of the degrees, intrinsically, could (or should) be conducted in the 2nd state, our manhood in which we conversely learn and grow.

 

Cirlot, in his Dictionary of Symbols, makes an interesting point in that the idea of progression in the stages of age is not unique to Masonry. Besides the stages themselves, the number three (3) is a representation of synthesis and unites the “solution of conflict posed by dualism.” In other words, the third object brings about balance for the first two opposing states. Think of the balance of three dots, one stacked above two.

 

From this point, the degree breaks off to correlate these first steps with the three principal pillars of the lodge as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty which also has an interesting Kabalistic point of reference in the three pillars that make up the structure of the tree of life. Keep in mind, the orientation assumes the viewer reverse the structure to mirror ones own standing rather than simply reflect the observer.

 

Wisdom, the left hand pillar of mercy, is an active pillar and representativeof alchemical fire, which is the principal of spirituality, often called the pillar of Jachin. It is a masculine pillar, and relates to our mental energy, our loving kindness, and our creative inspiration as we traverse it up the Kabbalaistic tree through the Sephirot.

 

Strength is the right hand pillar and takes the form of severity, shaped into the alchemical symbol of water. It can represent darkness, but it is a passive symbol that is feminine in nature and called the pillar of Boaz. Upon it we find the points of our thoughts and ideas, our feelings and emotions, and the physicality of our physical experience, our sensations, each an aspect of its Cabalistic progression.

 

Beauty, then, takes on the role of synthesis of the two, the pillar of mildness; it is upon this pillar that the novitiate is transformed through his progressive states as he progresses. The central pillar of Beauty is representative of Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton which represents deity itself"mercurial transformation" upon which our crown of being resides balanced through feeling and emotion from our foundation of justice and mercy, all of which springs from our link to the everyday world.

 

These aspects of the Kabbalah are not specific attributes of the study in the blue lodge, rather elements of deeper esoteric study, found more specifically in the degrees of the Scottish Rite. Because of the pillars, and their deeper symbolic meaning, it does, however, necessitate looking at them deeper to see the relationship between them as the blue lodge degrees seem to have parallels in the study of the Kabbalah – a happy accident at some time past or with purpose to link the ideas together. Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty are specific aspects of the lower three degrees and emphasized here in the first three steps into the middle chamber, necessitating their deeper esoteric study to fully grasp their broader importance.

 

As the degree instructs – Wisdom is to contrive, Strength is to support, and Beauty is to adorn all great and important undertakings – which are the fundamentals of the three pillars in the Kabbalaistic study.

 

Conversely, as the degree states, these three pillars “allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.” and can be interpreted as such in both a micro (in lodge) fashion and in a broader macro tradition of Masonry itself – in this Kabbalaistic formulation. When the alchemical aspects of wisdom and strength are combined we can see the 6 pointed star appears, the symbol of transformation, often depicted in the conjoining of the square and compass in which Masons are instructed to square their actions and circumscribe their passions, which also corresponds to the link between the Saints Johns – the Baptist as the principal of alchemical water, and the Evangelist as the symbol of alchemical fire, both of whom have much deeper esoteric connections in Masonry. Also, the figures of the lodge leadership have a deeper connection as you begin to look at their alchemical connections too, when you look at their relationship to the Sun and moon, and the aspirant candidate as the solution of conflict, as Cirlot described, and as defined in the first degree – the three sphere aspect to balance the two of conflict.

 

From these short first few tentative steps, we can see that there is a wealth of Masonic symbols at hand, but we are only one third into our progression. Our next step takes us deeper into the middle chamber to its central position where we encounter an interesting juxtaposition of the physical world to our very human aspect of being through our senses.

 

For now, reflect a time on these first three steps and consider what comes next upon the path.

Masonic Pavement and Indented Skirting.

 

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The Symbolism on Our Lodge Officers

 

by Norman Senn, P.M. Mosaic Lodge #176 Fiat Lux Lodge of Research #1980

 

It is often said that symbolism is carried too far and this is

difficult to deny when I think of Freud and other psychiatrists and psychologists who seem able to find strange and often erotic meanings in all they see. The meanings given to every image based on repetition makes the lay-person feel at a serious disadvantage when they wish to contradict anything that is given a meaning by such "Specialists." The symbolic object, which is dredged up by the mind, seems to have no great pattern of consistency in the case of psychiatric symbol definition.

 

We are more fortunate in Freemasonry because we possess a body of ritualistic work which defines many of our symbols in at least one way. This allows us to look at our symbols in two distinct ways, the first being in the way our teachings say and secondly at the common meaning given to the same symbol by the profane. The similarity is usually very close but the range of meanings in the outside world is frequently much broader.

 

When a new mason asks the question about symbols, "what is that?", or "what does that mean?", do we tend to back off? Do we have the feeling that these are 'old' symbols, that really have no meaning in our modern world? If this is the case, then we are in very serious trouble within our Lodges because the Charge at our installations very clearly states that "...it inculcates principles of the purest morality, though veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." We are also told in the same Charge that to penetrate through the veil of the allegories and symbols is to understand the mysteries. While there is a far deeper meaning in the overall pattern of the craft, it is of great value to find some meanings of the individual symbols and to attempt to recall that meaning on each occasion that we see them. This creates the 'repetition' form of learning that begins to modify our life style to become that "better man" we all strive for.

 

One of the problems with the human mind is that it tends to ignore items which it registers frequently. We are the last ones to see our children grow, and need a visitor to bring this to our

attention. So it is, with the jewels worn by the officers of our

Lodges. How many of you have looked at your officers jewels -

really looked. Firstly they are quite detailed, secondly they

frequently have things on them that you were totally unaware of.

 

There are different companies producing jewels and each may embellish the jewels differently, but you can be sure that there is meaning behind practically every identifiable whirl and loop.

In addition to the symbols on the jewel, each of these is suspended from a collar which may also have symbols upon it. Then the Officers also have an apron, often the same as yours, and this has detail on it that we tend to observe when it is first presented to us, but then we never consider it again.

 

What I hope to do in a short period of time, is to look at some of

the jewel, collar, and apron symbols and consider some of the

meanings that are taught us and then also some of meanings which are known to be fairly common in the everyday world. There will be areas where we skip over areas lightly, there will be a few diversions, but I hope that you will consider your Lodge jewels a little differently in the future.

 

A final point before starting is that all masonic symbols are

positive, none are aimed at anything that is not for the good of

the mason as an individual, and through him, for the world at

large. We degrade no symbol and none can ever be considered to be contrary to the high principles we extol. Remember that there is no right or wrong to symbolism - it is what you accept as meaningful to you as a Craftsman. The following are my findings and interpretations and it is quite likely that you will have different interpretations, but I wish to share my findings with you.

 

The Master carries with him, a great symbol. If you are of a York

Mason you will learn that it is immoveable, whereas if you use the Canadian Work, that it is moveable. The square is the symbol of regulated life and actions. It is the masonic rule for correcting and harmonising conduct on principles or morality and virtue, and as a symbol, it is dedicated to the Master. We also identify ourselves with this symbol, because we are taught that squares, levels and perpendiculars are the proper signs to know a mason.

 

We are surrounded by squares in our Lodge for every mason wears at least one although the Immediate Past Master and the Past Masters wear it most obviously. It stands, as one of the Great Lights, in the centre of all our activities and its legs constantly embrace the Worshipful Master. It is repeated in our F.C. salute, our feet positions, our way of moving around the Lodge and our legs when at the altar in our initiation.

 

History tells us that the square, which is an upright with a right

top arm, is the Greek letter gamma. Each one of us knows the

meanings associated with the letter G. In the construction trade,

the square is used for "trueing" stones and "proving" them correct.

 

We can see how easily, the association with truth and virtue could arise. There was the historical belief that the shape of the

ancient world was an oblong square and this is represented in our "squared Lodge."

 

There have been references to the square's meaning as a symbol long before the start of Masonry, as we know it. The Egyptians believed that truth and justice were 'on the square', Confucius in about 500 BC referred to the squareness of actions. Mencius, the Chinese philosopher of about 372 BC refers to square actions. Simonides of Ceos, the Greek lyrical poet of about 600 BC and Aristotle in about 350 BC refer to 'square actions' and associate this with honest dealings, high morality and virtue.

 

The symbol is not original, it is certainly far from new, but it

seems to have a remarkable consistency of meaning.

If we move on to the Immediate Past Master's jewel for a moment we observe that it is identical to the Master's in shape except that pendant from it is the 47th problem of Euclid. It is important to remember that Euclid only proved the Pythagorean theorem of about 300 years earlier. When you consider what the theorem shows it is a multitude of further squares. Squares on sides, mathematically 'squared' numbers and a central closed square, about which all the 'proof' stands. As an emphasis of the square symbol we could see nothing which could do it better. We should know that the properties of this triangular arrangement were first thought to be magical in the relationship they demonstrated. In addition, Pythagoras, being Greek, may have had the Greek letter/symbol G in his mind when he is reputed to have exclaimed 'Eureka' and it is for us to decide if the utility or the symbolism had generated his joy. We learn in our work that we are to be inspired to lov e the arts and sciences by this design and pro of. We should always marvel that such a simple figure could have had such impact on our world.

 

You may think that we should move on to the next set of jewels at this point but hold ... there is more, much more that we can find at this time on the jewels that we have considered - look at the design on them. Now do not think that we will find new figures on all the other jewels but the jewels of the three principal officers are the most embellished and we will stay for a little longer here.

 

In the angle of the square is the sun, radiant with its beams and

with a rather clear face on it. Was this doodling the work of a

metal worker with time on his hands? Of course not, for the

historical significance of the sun as a symbol is an integral part

of all our Lodge work. We refer to the sun in many places and also copy it is many actions. At the opening and closing of the Lodge, all the officers relate their actions to the sun. We walk around our Lodge in the same direction as the sun appears to move across our earth. We travel towards the East, the place of light, after being informed that the Master rules his Lodge as the sun does the day. If you think and possibly are aware, that culture seemed to develop in the East, there was always the suggestion that the source of the sun had inspired this knowledge and culture.

 

Proof is readily available of the frequency of sun-worship as the

first form of contemplation of a deity. Man has always looked

upward for a "source" and the sun met the early criteria of

"supporter" of the life of the world. It is fairly natural that

this early god would be personified by the addition of a face so

that the god could be given more of the human attributes. Even

with our own concept of God, we find the degree of personification relates to the stage of understanding of the race or individual.

 

Do we then have a reminder of that ancient worship on our jewel which is 'a reaching back' to give evidence, albeit erroneous, of the great historical past of the Craft? Perhaps it is also a repetition of the many death and rebirth mysteries and legends of the past .... and the present.

 

Perhaps for us we should remember more the sun as being the symbol of brightness, the opposer of evil. We know that we say in lodge that the rays spread their benign influence and we also must have a constant search for light. In fact the degrees seek 'light', 'more light' and 'further light', and this is given by our three lesser lights, one of which represents the sun as well as the Master. We are told also that the sun is the glory of the Lord, and it governs the day. There is another link in our lod ge with the sun and that is a symbol designated as meaning something else, but the astrological sign for the sun is a point within a circle.

 

While the sun is one clear symbol, we also find the moon with a

face on the jewel. Explain where it is. This symbol appears

elsewhere in our Lodge as one of the Lesser lights and is

represented by the Senior Warden. The moon and sun have many similar characteristics in symbolism, but regularity and stability have the approval of our teachings. These principles are desirable in life both in and our of Lodge, as our Warden states in opening and closing. It is natural that in the absence of the Master (the sun), the moon should rule in his place.

The symbol in the profane world has always indicated measurable states, regularity and is strongly associated with the

death-rebirth mysteries that are continued as the principal theme and lesson in Masonry.

 

Yet another symbol is found on the jewel in the form of a cluster

of seven stars. These are specifically referred to in the Canadian teachings and are an important symbol in that they represent the etherial mansion, veiled from human eyes but the York mason learns only of the star-decked heavens. The significance of these stars which adorn the ceiling of many Lodge rooms is very complex, in that the stars and the number seven are almost constantly in symbolism. The stars themselves, in clusters tend to be associated with order and destiny and so to some degree reinforce the symbolism contained in that of the moon symbolism. When we come to the seven we are almost overwhelmed with the many facts associated with it. The number seven was said to be 'perfect' because it contained the numbers 3 and 4 and was itself indivisible and could not be created by multiplication. This gave it the name of the virgin number. There were seven years to an apprentice ship, there were seven planets known to man of the middl e ages, and there are seven days in a week of which the 7th is the sabbath.

 

The days of the week are named after the seven gods of the Goths, a seventh son has special powers, the Jews swore by the number seven, there was a need for seven witnesses to agreements, and Solomon's temple was said to have been built in seven years. Jericho was encircled seven times by seven priests, and these were the seven liberal arts and sciences know as the trivium a nd quadrivium which were thought to contain the total sum of human knowledge. Seven represents symbolically the combination of the Trinity and four cardinal virtues, it is the number of the basic musical notes, of colours and of the spheres. Seven is related to perfection, to religious truth and also with knowledge. It is hard to find a more

astounding mass of facts associated with a number until we observe that three and five are similar.

 

Within the Lodge we are reminded that it needs seven officers to open the Lodge and those seven steps of the staircase reminding us of the liberal arts and sciences. Jacob's ladder is usually shown with seven rungs of which 3 are considered most exemplary for masons. While then these seven small stars on the jewel are insignificant they are repeated as a symbol at least three times within our Lodges and give us much to think about.

 

Finally we can move on to the jewel of the Senior Warden, the

Level. We meet upon this sign, and we have all been raised from the dead level to the living perpendicular. The symbol, we are taught, shows the principle of equality and reminds us that we are all descended from one stock and possess one nature and it thus justifies our organization as a fraternity of equals. At Pompeii it was discovered that a carving of a level with symbols of death demonstrated an early belief in death as the great levelle.

 

This, is our great experience. We are also told that we are

travelling on a level of time to an undiscovered country from which no traveller returns. This also associates death with levels and this is patterned after associations which exist outside the craft.

 

We observe again on this jewel, the sun, moon and seven stars and as we move to the Junior Wardens Jewel will see them yet again. The Junior Warden's Jewel is of course the plumb referred to in our lectures as the symbol of rectitude and uprightness. A fairly simple relationship to be sure. There is a link with this jewel and Jacob's ladder stretching between heaven and earth and stressing a morality which should be practised. We are instructed in our steps to stand erect and charged to act upon this symbol as we leave Lodge. This association is identical within and without the Lodge.

 

We now move to a few of the simpler symbols worn as jewels by our officers, and while some simply indicate their role they have a few meanings on which we may think.

 

The doves of the deacons have long had two symbolic meanings, that of a messenger and that of peace. The dove we see in Lodge has the sprig of olive in its beak and is clearly a representative of Noah who used it as a messenger of good tidings. The deacons jewel was, in an earlier period, a representation of the God Hermes or Mercury who was again the messenger of the ancient gods. In the Christian faith the dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. This jewel then is really a representation of the work to be performed but with

overtones of the early church and the Bible.

 

The stewards wear and carry the cornucopia which is a

representation of the horn of the goat which, in legend, suckled

the infant Jupiter. The horn symbolises strength and abundance and suggests the supply of food as it is usually displayed full of fruits. In our Lodges this is associated with those responsible for satisfying the "inner man" after regular meetings are concluded. As in the case of Amalthea the goat with the "visiting Jupiter", the supply is supposed to be particularly abundant in the presence of visitors.

 

The organist wears the lyre, a six stringed instrument associated with Turpsichore, the Goddess of music and is the symbol of musical accomplishment. It should constantly remind us of the contribution that music can make to not only our Lodge but our total lives.

 

The chaplain wears what is perhaps the most important symbol within our Lodge, for his jewel portrays the open volume of Sacred Law, without which no Lodge can operate. This symbol expresses our dedication to the God in whom we have a personal belief. It guides us in the erection of our spiritual building and points out our whole duty. It is the rule and guide to our faith and is kept in our hearts between our meetings. The Bible on the jewel is open upon a triangle which has additional symbolism for th e Christian mason in that it represents the trinity. For all masons the triangle can remind us of the three moral virtues, the principle tenets of our profession, the knocks, the ruffians, the Great Lights, the lesser lights, the three degrees, the three Grand Masters, God and the Holy St.'s John and the steps, both our individual ones and those upon which the Master presides. There are so many references to the number three that it rivals the number s even for sheer volume. Suffice it to say that the symbolism of this particular jewel is particularly meaningful to masons, and each should have his own particular interpretation without any suggestion that this should be imposed on others.

 

Again at this point you should observe the positive nature of the symbols and the major influence they should have upon our thoughts.

 

The registrar has a simple scroll about his neck which signifies

the historical record of events. This is a reminder to each one of us that our actions make an impression on the great record of existence and we should strive to keep our book in correct balance.

 

The secretary wears the crossed quills which seem to be the

international symbol of a secretary. The saltire pattern, the bows and the trailing ends have no recorded significance, but, we all know this jewel indicates an onerous task performed by many sound Brethren.

 

The treasurer has crossed keys rather than quills and these are, of course, to the money chest of the Lodge. This is simply a role indicator but these keys should remind us of "that excellent key - a Freemason's tongue which should speak well of a Brother present or absent. When this cannot be done, adopt the excellent virtue of the Craft - SILENCE.

 

The secretary-treasurer has a combination of a crossed key and

quill but I will not go into which one is on top.

 

The jewel of the Director of Ceremonies is the crossed batons.

These are symbols of the batons of command which were presented on the field of battle to an outstanding survivor. Possibly this is why this office is held by Past Masters.

The Inner Guard and the Tyler both have swords, differing only in that the tyler has one whereas the Inner Guard has two. These have always been symbols of a protector and in particular have been associated with the defence of a faith. The sword has the reputation of warding off evil because in the inverted position it forms a cross. In addition, within the Lodge, we know that the Tyler's sword guards the Constitution and is a constant reminder to guard our thoughts, words, and deeds, remembering the mas onic virtues of silence and circumspection.

 

Having looked at the jewels we should also observe the collars from which they are suspended, because these in some cases have symbols.

 

The principal symbols are the blazing star the entwined snakes and knots. The blazing star pattern used, is usually that of the

"pentalpha", or five pointed star with intermediate flames. This

star is primarily the symbol of divine providence and can be found in our mosaic pavement. The five points should remind us also of other masonic "fives". The five orders of arch itecture, the five points of fellowship, the five senses and the five who must be present in order for a Lodge to be held. The star is also said to represent the Morning Star which is yet another symbol of rebirth which is so significant to each of us.

I should point out that there is a six pointed star or hexalpha

which is also known as the "Glory". This six pointed star is the

Seal of Solomon and also the Star of David. This star is also

represented on the carpet at times and there is distinct confusion in the texts over which star is THE star to use. The primary symbolic meaning of the six pointed star is the universe as an entity.

 

Also to be found on the collar is this complex looping which shows a serpent swallowing its tail, a common symbol of eternity and in many cases associated with wisdom. The double entwined never ending loops are similarly symbols of eternity but have the additional meanings ascribed to them of vibrant energy and active life. These symbols are worthy of our contemplation in relation to the stability and teachings of the Craft.

 

We then hear the next symbol although modern methods sometimes deny us the sound which adorns the apron, the seven chained tassel.

 

This is a fairly late addition and is thought to be more a

decorative copying of the ends of the original longer and centrally tied ribbon or belt. The changing to tassels was slowly developed and perhaps we could turn our thoughts again to the symbolism of the number seven, already related for the Masters jewel. In addition to the tassels we have the buttons which contain ou principal symbols again. Here the only addition is the compasses which I leave to your personal investigation for our teaching clearly suggests that they are for the craft.

 

Before closing we should end with a symbol of utility which would make Freud turn in his grave, for the standard hook on an apron is a snake. While we will accept 'wisdom', it is possibly simply a decorated, very functional 'hook', with no great thought put into it. We certainly do not all have one at any rate.

These are then the jewels of the Lodge, the collar and aprons worn by our officers and perhaps they have shown a little more than you have normally noticed. If you would look at the Jewels in the next few Lodges you attend, you will find similarities and differences.

 

These will take on a new meaning because you have looked, and possibly you may find more meaning in various aspects of your personal masonry by contemplation of the new symbols you find or the old ones that you know. I sincerely hope so.

 

****************

 

The Mosaic Pavement by GABRIEL VASILE OLTEAN

Expert Inspector of NGLR for Western Region; Past Worshipful Master, ZAMOLXIS Lodge, No. 182, Deva

 

"The interior decoration of a masonic lodge comprises ornaments, accessories and insignia. The ornaments are: the mosaic on the floor - respresenting spirt and matter, the shining star and the laced edge, which remind us always the first of the presence of God and the second of the protective wall" - cites Charles W Leadbeater from the ritual of mixed masonry in his work "Freemasonry - Rites and Initiations."

 

In the center of the Temple, on the ground, there is a rectangular floor, with black and white tiles, called the mosaic pavement (theoretically, cubes seen perspectivally), where a relgaion obtains between the sides, either 2:1 (the long square) or 1.618.../1 (the golden number), thus coming up with a surface proportional to the total area of the Lodge. Thus we see that practically the moasica, placed in the center of the Lodge is a microcosmic representation of the whole of creation and is by itself a sacred central area - whence the interdiction to ever step on the mosaic when the work of the Lodge is underway. The pavement symbolizes the indisociable operative complementarity of the two cosmic principles: the initiate must know how no longer let himself be dominated by the confrontation between positive and negative forces, to know (it is indispensable) how to use it, to master it so as to work constructively.

 

In Ancient Egypt, the mosaic was never stepped on except by a candidate and the masters of ceremony, and only at precise moments (by the Past Worshipful Master for the fulfilment of his tasks, by the First Expert when he took the light of the sacred fire, or by the sexton when he spread frankincense on the altar of the Temple. An extremely important aspect of the mosaic pavement is that, being placed in the middle of the Temple, framed by the three colonettes (which represent the Worshipful Master, the Senior and Junior Wardens), must be avoided by walking in a square, in a symbolic sense. The current of energy cross the floor, some along the length, some along the width, in lines that remind of the warp of a canvas.

 

Upon opening the work, the Trestle Board is depicted on this pavement, which varies with the first three degrees. The mosaic pavement signifies different things according to the traditional mode of work in the lodge, or the masonic rite employed.

The French Rite specifies that the pavement adorned the threshold of the geat porch of the Temple and showed that this is one of the ornaments of the Lodge, being the emblem of the intimate union among masons. Here it was explained to the Apprentice that he "could not stand on the mosaic pavement to contemplate the interior of the edifice". This started above from the seventh step, as we can well conclude by an attentive research of the Trestle Boards of the first two degrees.

The Rectified Scottish Rite speaks too little of this pavement, noting that "the mosaic pavement adorns the threshold of the great veranda of the Temple. It covers the entry to the subterranean part of the Temple between the two columns, to a crypt that held holy idols and especially the pledge of the alliance between the chosen people and the Creator: the Royal Ark (Ark of the Covenant).

 

The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite does not describe in any way this ornament. As to the decoration of the Lodge, it is said however "the floor of the lodge is the pavement in alternative black and white squares. When it is thus decorated, a pavement is achieved wit the shape of a long square, placed in the center of the Lodge, decorated on the model of the latter".

 

The York Rite affirms that "the mosaic pavement represents the floor of the Temple of Solomon", having the added laced edge. It is obvious enough that it is about a symbolic contribution in what regards the floor of the Lodge, because in the Bible the floor of the Temple isn't described as an series of black and white squares: "and the floor of the Temple was made from cypress planks" (3 Kings 6:15).

 

Whereas in the Emulation Rite (the Anglo-Saxon Rites are more precise in their descriptions) specifies that "the mosaic pavement may rightly be considered the wondrous tiling of a freemason Lodge due to its diversity and regularity. Thus the diversity of beings and objects in the world surfaces, as well the ensouled ones as those that are not". In the complementary course of the Rite of Emulation (in the fifth part) it is specified: "our lodge is adorned with mosaic pavement to mark the uncertainty of all terrestrial vanities... as we step on this mosaic, our thought must return to the original idea that we imitate and act as honorable men and masons". Mosaic pavement is presented as an image of faith, harmony, understanding..

Outside the definitions offered by different masonic rites, the mosaic pavement may be approached under many aspect, two of which seem edifying to us:

• The floor of the Lodge,

• The route of squares for the tracing of planes,

When we approach the mosaic pavement as floor of the Lodge, we are forced to distinguish between the pavement of operative and speculative Lodges.

 

In the first case, we specify that Lodges were usually annexes to the construction site, attached to the construction on the Southern side of the Work (to receive more light and to have the wall of the edifice for protection. It is extremely clear and evident that in this case no floor was imposed (nor would any be functional). The tiling that constitutes the mosaic is fragile in contradiction with the dimensions (weight) of the tools of freemasons (sledgehammers were very heavy). If we are talking about a surface for permanent cutting and polishing of rock, we can easily imagine that the floor of such a place was permanently covered by fragments, remains, abrasive dust. Not in the last place, we must note the fact that mosaic was principally fixed in especially prepared mortar in which designs were first marked that etched the image or drawing that was the purpose of the mosaic.

 

In the other approach, that of the speculative Lodges, a symbolic rug laid in squares may be laid on the floor, or it may be build from alternating black and white tiles, the decision being that of the Lodge. The notionc of mosaic pavement cannot be discussed before the appearance of Grand Lodges.

 

As a route of squares - as network of right angles - to trace planes is another mode of approach specific to operative lodges, which must distinguish:

A directory route of the edifice that must be understood after we describe the Medieval constructin site at the beginning of the work: on a leveled and cleared surface (treated with charcoal), a scheme of the main lines of the edifice was traced with the help of a rope covered in chalk. There are documents to this effect that attest the describe practice, which reminds of certain answers from the masonic catechism. To the question: "how do you serve your Master?", there is the answer: "with charcoal, chalk and clay".

 

A technical assistance set of squares would be another variant of this approach. An amenably arranged surface, spread in regular squares through lines traced for inumerable uses, the first and most important being that of assembly table. It also served to establish easily a series of angles, in an approximate way that was sufficient for a mason (taking four divisions on a line, and on the perpendicular seven at one extremity, a reasaonbly 60° angle is obtained). In fact, we can imagine the banal math copybook paper that has helped us trace with more facility (and more precision) the geometrical shapes that tortured (or didn't) us in the geometry problems in elementary school.

 

The black and white, chessboard-like pavement is thus the mosaic pavement. In what pertains to the term "mosaic", there are two different opinions, one refering to Moses and one to the technique of decoration. Each school has its pros and cons, more or less logical and valid.

 

"The canvas of ours lives is a mixed thread, the good together with the bad" wrote Shakespeare. Anything is characterized by a combination of good and bad, light and shadow, joy and sadness, positive and negative, yin and yang. What is good for me may be bad for you, pleasure is generated by pain, etc.

 

Following the thread of the current Paper, we may say with certainty that the mosaic is not mart of the elements of Judaic architecture and that the mosaic pavement is a contribution of modern speculative Masonry, operative lodges never having been squared this way. It is obvious that the current exposition is not and does not wish to be an exhaustive work. It is a somewhat complex approach of an important symbol in the decoration of the masonic Temple and it wishes in fact to the a paper addressing an open question:

- The mosaic pavement is the floor of the Lodge (as the rituals consider it) or is it the space limited by the three pillars Power, Wisdom, and Beauty?

A good thought accompanied by the triple brotherly accolade!

 

Copyright Forum Masonic

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, dit Sandro Botticelli, est un peintre toscan, né à Florence le 1ᵉʳ mars 1445 et mort le 17 mai 1510 dans la même ville. Botticelli est l'un des peintres les plus importants de la Renaissance italienne et de l'histoire de l'art.

 

Jeune homme présenté par Vénus aux Arts libéraux (ou Jeune homme présenté par Vénus et les Grâces aux sept Arts libéraux)

(vers 1483–1485)

Fresque (transposée sur toile)

Dimensions : env. 215 × 172 cm

 

Lieu d’origine : Villa Lemmi (Chiasso dei Macerelli, près de Florence)

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Website : GALERIE JUGUET

© All rights reserved ®

 

Website : MÉMOIRE DES PIERRES

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Contexte historique et artistique

 

Cette œuvre est une fresque décorative peinte pour une chambre à l’étage de la villa Lemmi, propriété d’une famille florentine liée aux Médicis.

Elle a été découverte en 1873 sous un badigeon, puis transférée sur toile et transportée au Louvre.

L’ensemble décoratif comprenait deux fresques :

Jeune homme présenté par Vénus aux Arts libéraux

Jeune femme recevant des présents de Vénus et des Grâces

Ces deux œuvres semblent célébrer un mariage humaniste, probablement celui d’un membre de la famille Tornabuoni.

 

Description et interprétation

 

Sujet : Un jeune homme, guidé par Vénus, est présenté aux sept Arts libéraux :

Grammaire, Dialectique, Rhétorique (arts du langage)

Arithmétique, Musique, Géométrie, Astronomie (arts mathématiques)

 

Cette allégorie illustre l’initiation intellectuelle et morale du jeune homme, selon les idéaux humanistes de la Renaissance.

Les Arts libéraux sont représentés sous forme de figures féminines magnifiquement drapées, disposées en un cortège harmonieux et gracieux.

Le style est typique de Botticelli : élégance linéaire, raffinement du dessin, et symbolisme néoplatonicien (influence de Marsile Ficin et du cercle médicéen).

 

Analyse

 

L’œuvre exalte l’éducation humaniste et la vertu intellectuelle, vues comme voies vers la perfection morale et spirituelle.

Le jeune homme est à la fois élève et initié : il s’élève de la beauté sensible (Vénus) à la connaissance rationnelle (les Arts libéraux).

Botticelli y mêle la mythologie antique et la philosophie néoplatonicienne, caractéristiques du Quattrocento florentin.

 

Voici une fiche d’analyse complète de l’œuvre de Sandro Botticelli, claire et structurée comme on le ferait dans un dossier d’histoire de l’art (niveau universitaire ou lycée supérieur) :

 

FICHE D’ANALYSE D’ŒUVRE

 

Contexte historique et culturel

 

Réalisée dans la Florence de Laurent le Magnifique, centre majeur de la culture humaniste à la fin du XVe siècle.

Peinte pour la villa Lemmi, résidence d’une famille proche des Médicis, probablement les Tornabuoni (alliés et mécènes du peintre).

Ces fresques auraient décoré une chambre nuptiale, célébrant l’union de Giovanni Tornabuoni et Giovanna degli Albizzi.

L’œuvre illustre les valeurs humanistes : la sagesse, la vertu, et la formation intellectuelle comme moyen d’élévation morale.

 

Sujet et iconographie

 

Scène allégorique : un jeune homme, conduit par Vénus, est présenté aux sept Arts libéraux, personnifiés par des figures féminines.

Les Arts libéraux sont traditionnellement divisés en deux groupes :

Le trivium (arts du langage) : Grammaire, Dialectique, Rhétorique

Le quadrivium (arts du nombre) : Arithmétique, Musique, Géométrie, Astronomie

 

Ces disciplines représentaient les fondements de l’éducation humaniste médiévale et renaissante.

Vénus, déesse de l’Amour et de la Beauté, joue ici le rôle d’une guide spirituelle, menant le jeune homme vers la connaissance et la vertu.

Le jeune homme pourrait symboliser l’époux, initié aux valeurs intellectuelles et morales par la beauté et la sagesse.

 

Composition

 

La scène est ordonnée et frontale, typique de Botticelli.

Les personnages se détachent sur un fond clair et architectural, évoquant un espace intemporel.

Les figures féminines sont disposées en frise harmonieuse, chacune différenciée par son attribut (livre, instrument, sphère, compas…).

Le regard et le mouvement des corps guident le spectateur du premier plan (le jeune homme) vers les figures du savoir.

L’équilibre et la grâce dominent : tout semble suspendu dans une atmosphère de pureté et d’harmonie.

 

Couleur et lumière

 

Palette douce et lumineuse : ocres, roses, bleus clairs, verts atténués.

La lumière diffuse renforce la spiritualité et la sérénité de la scène.

Les draperies légères et le modelé subtil donnent aux figures une élégance éthérée typique de Botticelli.

 

Style et symbolique

 

Ligne fluide et expressive : la ligne contourne et définit la beauté du corps, plus que le volume.

Gracilité des gestes et rythme des drapés : la beauté est ici morale et spirituelle, non charnelle.

Néoplatonisme florentin : selon la philosophie de Marsile Ficin, la beauté sensible (incarnée par Vénus) élève l’âme vers la beauté intellectuelle et divine (les Arts libéraux).

La Vénus de Botticelli n’est pas une simple déesse païenne, mais une médiatrice entre amour terrestre et amour céleste.

 

Interprétation

 

L’œuvre illustre le chemin de l’élévation de l’âme :

La Beauté attire l’esprit (Vénus).

Les Arts libéraux instruisent et purifient l’intellect.

Le jeune homme s’élève vers la sagesse et la vertu.

 

C’est donc une allégorie de l’éducation humaniste, où la culture conduit à la perfection morale.

Sur le plan personnel, la fresque célèbre sans doute l’initiation du jeune marié à la vie adulte, à travers la connaissance et la vertu.

 

Portée et postérité

 

Cette œuvre est une synthèse de l’esprit humaniste et néoplatonicien florentin.

Elle s’inscrit dans la même veine que les grandes allégories de Botticelli :

Le Printemps (vers 1482)

La Naissance de Vénus (vers 1484–1485)

 

Moins célèbre que ces deux tableaux, elle en partage pourtant la pureté de ligne, la symbolique morale, et la poésie visuelle.

 

Citation :

« Botticelli peint la beauté non pour flatter les sens, mais pour élever l’esprit. »

(paraphrase de Giorgio Vasari, Vies des artistes)

 

CES PHOTOS NE SONT PAS À VENDRE ET NE PEUVENT PAS ÊTRE REPRODUITES, MODIFIÉES, REDIFFUSÉES, EXPLOITÉES COMMERCIALEMENT OU RÉUTILISÉES DE QUELQUE MANIÈRE QUE CE SOIT.

UNIQUEMENT POUR LE PLAISIR DES YEUX.

Cette pièce fut une des premières pièces à recevoir son décor : c'était la Chambre du Maître,

Antoine III de Clermont. Décorée de très beau médaillons représentant les 7 Arts Libéraux :

- les trois matières littéraires qui constituent ce qu'on appelle le trivium : la logique, la rhétorique, la grammaire

- les quatre matières scientifiques qui constituent le quadrivium : la musique, la géométrie, l'arithmétique et l'astronomie

 

Les arts libéraux étaient les principales matières enseignées à l'école à l'Antiquité et au Moyen-âge.

Puis, on a rajouté un 8ème médaillon avec Apollon et les 9 muses, divinités qui inspiraient et

protégeaient les artistes dans la tradition gréco-romaine.

 

Ces médaillons sur enduit sec, sont attribués à l'école de Fontainebleau ; le fruit d'un travail

entre Le Primatice et son élève et exécuteur testamentaire Ruggiero de Ruggieri. Le huitième serait attribué au Maître de Flore, autre élève du Primatice.

 

Ces œuvres ont été peu restaurées et sont dans un état de conservation exemplaire, seuls les cadres et le fond du décor de grotesques ont été remaniés au 19ème siècle. Des perroquets ainsi qu'un singe ont été peints en sachant que la reine Catherine de Médicis, épouse d'Henri II, aimait s'entourer de ces animaux...

Le plafond du 16ème siècle est un damier de 9 caissons, il est sans doute un des plus beaux de ce château. Dans son état d'origine, il a certes souffert de quelques infiltrations mais il n'a pas été retouché. La richesse de la polychromie est typique de cette époque Renaissance, des éléments moulés ont été insérés pour accentuer l'effet de profondeur.

 

Enfin, Antoine III a fait rajouter des médaillons, plus précisément des cartouches en papier mâché, peints avec les 12 signes du zodiaque, le plus visible de tous étant celui du poisson au-dessus du lit ou le lion. Rares exemples de cartouches et rosaces en papier mâché datant du 16ème siècle qui sont actuellement répertoriés en France.

 

Avant de quitter la pièce, nous noterons la présence de cette importante cheminée à griffe de lion, dont le décor était à la mode au 16ème siècle. Sur sa face vous pouvez voir peinte une ruche enflammée que le feu ne parvient pas à consumer d'où l'inscription latine en dessous "URIT NON CONSUMIT" qui signifie elle brûle sans se consumer. Certain y voit une allusion à l'état du royaume déchiré par les guerres de religions, la référence au nouveau mode de gouvernement mis en place à partir de la régence de Catherine de Médicis, la reine des abeilles et son essaim ou tout simplement une allégorie pour dire la persévérance dans les épreuves...

 

Source :

 

Poursuivez votre visite, ce n'est pas terminé... Néanmoins, je vous invite à jeter un coup d'œil par la fenêtre, un agréable panorama sur les jardins à l'Anglaise vous y attend.

 

Source : www.guidigo.com/Web/Le-chateau-d-Ancy-le-Franc

Masonic Tracing Board Decoded & Explained: youtu.be/9exPJ6LAjA8

 

Richmond Hill Masonic Temple 112 Crosby Avenue Richmond Hill Ontario.

 

www.niagaramasons.com/Info%20Stuff/The%20Winding%20Stairc...

 

Museum of Freemasonry - Masonic Library

 

Lecture: The Legend Of The Winding Stairs

 

In an investigation of the symbolism of the winding stairs, we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to there origin, there number, the objects which they recall, and there termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an assent upon them was intended to accomplish.

 

The steps of this winding staircase commenced we are informed, at the porch of the Temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of Masonic symbolism than that the Temple was the representative of the world purified by the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the Temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the Temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a mason, and to be born into the world of Masonic light, are all synonymous terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the winding stairs begins.

 

The Apprentice having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his Masonic life. But the first degree in masonry, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Masonry. the lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees.

 

As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the porch from the sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labour here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches the end of which is to be in the possession of divine truth. The winding stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the porch and between the pillars of strength and establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty placed before him. He cannot stand still; his destiny requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him

 

The numbers of these steps in all the systems is odd. The coincidence is at least curious that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; so that commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the masons from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the Masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers, and while three, five, seven, and nine, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, or eight. The odd number of stairs was therefore intended to symbolise the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain.

 

As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. The Tracing-boards of the nineteenth century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The prestonian lectures, used at the beginning of the century gave the whole number of thirty-eight. the error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was later corrected. At the union of the two Grand Lodges of England the number was reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven.

 

At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organisation of the order of which he has become a member. But the information here given, is barren, and unworthy of his labour. The rank of the officers, and the required number can give no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony.

 

The reference to the organisation of the Masonic institution is intended to remind us of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilisation, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition. Masonry itself is the result of civilisation; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition to mankind.

 

All the monuments of antiquity prove that as man emerged from the savage to the social state then came the invention of architecture. As architecture developed as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the harshness of the seasons, with the mechanical arts connected with it, for as we began to erect solid and more stately edifices of stone, they imitated the parts which necessity had introduced into the primitive huts. and adapted them to there temples, which, although at first simple and rude, were in the course of time, and by the ingenuity of succeeding architects, wrought and improved to such a degree of perfection on different models, that each was by way of eminence, denominated an order of architecture.

 

Advancing in his progress the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive al our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is closely connected with operative instruction of Masonry, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the winding stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge

 

So far, then the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessarry and useful member of society. Still must he go onward and forward. the stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and further wisdoms are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber the abiding-place of truth, be reached.

 

In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolesed by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Masony is an institution of olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learningis one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.

 

In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These seven arts were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any question which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature.

 

But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the winding stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are truth, or the approximation to which it will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of Masonic symbolism that the Mason is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labours, is symbolised by the Word, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of nature, of God, and of man's relation to them, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. Only at the end of this life shall he know the origin of life.

 

The middle chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the Word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.G.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring Mason; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but he must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.

 

It is then, as a symbol, and as a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the winding stairs. if we attempt to adopt it as a historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire to thus impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as a historical narrative without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsman were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the Temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a winding staircase to the place where the wages of labour were received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life, in the full fruition of manhood, the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek truth and knowledge; to believe this, is to believe and to know the true design of Speculative Masonry, the only design which makes it worthy of a good and wise man's study.

 

2nd degree fellowcraft tracing board illustration.

 

On our way to the Sanctum Sanctorum, the newly made Mason undertakes a passage through what is commonly called the Middle Chamber. The reference into the middle way is through the temple of Solomon, and the pathway to the Holy of Holies, the adytum in which the Holy Ark of the covenant resides at the the Kodesh Hakodashim, or the place in which deity dwells. In that journey through the middle space, the Second degree brother is introduced to some of the more seemingly secular influenced aspects of the fraternity that begin to take on a double, or symbolic, meaning. On their surface, the basic notions of these things are obvious, but not until you start to look at them closely, at their deeper meanings, that we start to see their relationships to other more esoteric ideas. This is similar to religious traditions where withing one religious text there can be multiple layers of meaning, and multiple ways of interpretation which can lead to an allegorical, a moral, or a mystical meaning.

 

Indeed, as the degree is symbolically in King Solomon’s Temple, so to can it be seen as a symbolic metaphor to our own internal path, what Joseph Campbell calls the hero quest, and where you “leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height.”[1]

 

This is not to assume that the Masonic degrees have a similar relevancy to sacred or Masonic symbols, tracing board, second degree, 2 degreespiritual texts, though some could argue that their significance is almost as powerful to some observants. It is a system of morality that strives to make good men better, which runs nearly in parallel with the many Volumes of the Sacred Law which seeks similar outcomes to achieve as it outlines and instructs its path to elevation. Whether its salvation or spiritual awakening the holy books seek to instruct its adherents to live better lives through their faith, the same that Freemasonry strives to through its practice – to make those good men better. In that process of making the good man a candidate for the degrees is made an entered apprentice, symbolically as he ascends Jacob’s ladder. Once at the top, he is presented a series of three groups of symbols which are set before him to become a Second Degree mason so as they may observe and contemplate them in their path of progression, their hero’s quest, to the third degree.

 

The story of the degree, from Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor*, picks up after the passage between the twin pillars of the degree with the conductor delivering this instruction:

 

Brother, we will pursue our journey. The next thing that attracts our attention is the winding stairs which lead to the Middle Chamber of King Solomon’s Temple, consisting of three, five, and seven steps.

 

The first three allude to the three principal stages of human life, namely, youth, manhood, and old age. In youth, as Entered Apprentices, we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood, as Fellow Crafts, we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in old age, as Master Masons, we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.

 

They also allude to the three principal supports in Masonry, namely, Wisdom, Strength. and Beauty; for it is necessary that there should be wisdom to contrive, strength to support, and beauty to adorn all great and important undertakings.

 

They further allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.

 

Let’s pause here and consider what some of the deeper meanings of these first steps infer. The first segment is fairly straight forward; with narrative telling us that the three steps allude to the three stages of human life – Youth, Manhood, and Old Age.

 

Youth is defined as:

Young persons, collectively.

A young person; especially, a young man.

The quality or state of being young; youthfulness; juvenility.

The part of life that succeeds to childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to manhood.

 

from ThinkExist.com

This is a pretty straight forward idea, especially as it says to us that “we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge”, but how does this apply to an older initiate, someone who is no longer in his youth. Is it a wistful thought to what was achieved when younger and in still in school? Taken on a deeper level, it could allude to the idea of the degree itself, the First degree being synonymous to mean that in the first, the candidate comes to the lodge as a youth (despite his chronological or physical age) with a clean slate of perception and a clean pallet of interpretation. In a sense, he comes as blank slate to its teachings or to the ideas before him. The degree being his introduction from exterior life to interior life which ushers him both into the fraternity and into the concept of the undertaking. Pike, in the first degree lecture in Morals and Dogma, calls this the focusing of the aspirants “unregulated force” – the channel by which they constrain their previously raw, infantile state, into that of a focused and youthful aspirant no matter their age.

 

Next, the candidate enters into his Manhood, more literally the 2nd degree, of which the ceremony says of it “we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves” which is a really active process to live by. We, in essence, are to achieve much by way of our doing, essentially, the work of our daily life towards our deity in worship and practice, our community in which we live and reside, but more specifically as we apply it to ourselves in continuing to apply what we’ve learned in our youth to this state of existence.

 

The Free Dictionary defines Manhood as:

1. The state or time of being an adult male human.

2. The composite of qualities, such as courage, determination, and vigor, often thought to be appropriate to a man.

3. Adult males considered as a group; men.

4. The state of being human.

 

In the third entry, we can take much from it beyond it simply being our middle state of being. It is in fact our ability to BE in the first place, our SELF in daily practice. Interesting as this is, the second degree in which our further education takes place is not only about the practice of our youth but also our ability to learn and apply that education to our life.

 

Campbell says of the age progression that “As a child, you are brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and you are dependant on others. All this has to be transcended when you come to maturity, so that you can live not in dependency but with self-responsible authority.”[2] This is, in essence, the heart of the three degree progression and the fundamental of the three steps – he becoming a man (or woman, respecting your discipline)!

 

Old age is a bit more of a troubling and complex issue. So often in modern society we look at old age as a point of retirement where work and physical activity dramatically changes or diminishes. In this description, the idea of old age holds true in that the degree says of old age that in it “we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality”

 

There are several interesting meanings we can take from this especially that it is in the degrees that these physical changes are metaphorically said to take place which can become a literal interpretation, and that once attained the Master Mason can live through them – literally to reflect on the life well spent. What’s troubling here is that the major portion of the work of the lodge is spent in the third degree and a caution must be considered so as to not see the work of the Master Mason as just one of reflection and of casual rest lest no work, as described in Manhood, be completed.

 

Old Age is essentially defined as ones age nearing or passing the average life span of human beings, and thus at the end of the human life cycle. In the U.S. this is considered to be 78 years old giving a distinct impression as to when one should then become a True Master. It really is at a twilight of life period, one of great age and maturity where little change and much reflection takes place. This gives us an interesting perspective on the meaning as it implies a near end of physical life period of time which squares with the degrees lesson as the period of reflection of a life well spent. We become the Master of our all, ready to pass our knowledge on to the next generation.

 

With this vantage, we can take pause to deeply consider that our daily working of the degrees, intrinsically, could (or should) be conducted in the 2nd state, our manhood in which we conversely learn and grow.

 

Cirlot, in his Dictionary of Symbols, makes an interesting point in that the idea of progression in the stages of age is not unique to Masonry. Besides the stages themselves, the number three (3) is a representation of synthesis and unites the “solution of conflict posed by dualism.” In other words, the third object brings about balance for the first two opposing states. Think of the balance of three dots, one stacked above two.

 

From this point, the degree breaks off to correlate these first steps with the three principal pillars of the lodge as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty which also has an interesting Kabalistic point of reference in the three pillars that make up the structure of the tree of life. Keep in mind, the orientation assumes the viewer reverse the structure to mirror ones own standing rather than simply reflect the observer.

 

Wisdom, the left hand pillar of mercy, is an active pillar and representativeof alchemical fire, which is the principal of spirituality, often called the pillar of Jachin. It is a masculine pillar, and relates to our mental energy, our loving kindness, and our creative inspiration as we traverse it up the Kabbalaistic tree through the Sephirot.

 

Strength is the right hand pillar and takes the form of severity, shaped into the alchemical symbol of water. It can represent darkness, but it is a passive symbol that is feminine in nature and called the pillar of Boaz. Upon it we find the points of our thoughts and ideas, our feelings and emotions, and the physicality of our physical experience, our sensations, each an aspect of its Cabalistic progression.

 

Beauty, then, takes on the role of synthesis of the two, the pillar of mildness; it is upon this pillar that the novitiate is transformed through his progressive states as he progresses. The central pillar of Beauty is representative of Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton which represents deity itself"mercurial transformation" upon which our crown of being resides balanced through feeling and emotion from our foundation of justice and mercy, all of which springs from our link to the everyday world.

 

These aspects of the Kabbalah are not specific attributes of the study in the blue lodge, rather elements of deeper esoteric study, found more specifically in the degrees of the Scottish Rite. Because of the pillars, and their deeper symbolic meaning, it does, however, necessitate looking at them deeper to see the relationship between them as the blue lodge degrees seem to have parallels in the study of the Kabbalah – a happy accident at some time past or with purpose to link the ideas together. Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty are specific aspects of the lower three degrees and emphasized here in the first three steps into the middle chamber, necessitating their deeper esoteric study to fully grasp their broader importance.

 

As the degree instructs – Wisdom is to contrive, Strength is to support, and Beauty is to adorn all great and important undertakings – which are the fundamentals of the three pillars in the Kabbalaistic study.

 

Conversely, as the degree states, these three pillars “allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.” and can be interpreted as such in both a micro (in lodge) fashion and in a broader macro tradition of Masonry itself – in this Kabbalaistic formulation. When the alchemical aspects of wisdom and strength are combined we can see the 6 pointed star appears, the symbol of transformation, often depicted in the conjoining of the square and compass in which Masons are instructed to square their actions and circumscribe their passions, which also corresponds to the link between the Saints Johns – the Baptist as the principal of alchemical water, and the Evangelist as the symbol of alchemical fire, both of whom have much deeper esoteric connections in Masonry. Also, the figures of the lodge leadership have a deeper connection as you begin to look at their alchemical connections too, when you look at their relationship to the Sun and moon, and the aspirant candidate as the solution of conflict, as Cirlot described, and as defined in the first degree – the three sphere aspect to balance the two of conflict.

 

From these short first few tentative steps, we can see that there is a wealth of Masonic symbols at hand, but we are only one third into our progression. Our next step takes us deeper into the middle chamber to its central position where we encounter an interesting juxtaposition of the physical world to our very human aspect of being through our senses.

 

For now, reflect a time on these first three steps and consider what comes next upon the path.

Masonic Tracing Board Decoded & Explained: youtu.be/9exPJ6LAjA8

 

Elmvale Masonic Temple 77 Queen Street West Elmvale Ontario.

 

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Museum of Freemasonry - Masonic Library

 

Lecture: The Legend Of The Winding Stairs

 

In an investigation of the symbolism of the winding stairs, we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to there origin, there number, the objects which they recall, and there termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an assent upon them was intended to accomplish.

 

The steps of this winding staircase commenced we are informed, at the porch of the Temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of Masonic symbolism than that the Temple was the representative of the world purified by the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the Temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the Temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a mason, and to be born into the world of Masonic light, are all synonymous terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the winding stairs begins.

 

The Apprentice having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his Masonic life. But the first degree in masonry, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Masonry. the lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees.

 

As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the porch from the sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labour here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches the end of which is to be in the possession of divine truth. The winding stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the porch and between the pillars of strength and establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty placed before him. He cannot stand still; his destiny requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him

 

The numbers of these steps in all the systems is odd. The coincidence is at least curious that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; so that commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the masons from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the Masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers, and while three, five, seven, and nine, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, or eight. The odd number of stairs was therefore intended to symbolise the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain.

 

As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. The Tracing-boards of the nineteenth century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The prestonian lectures, used at the beginning of the century gave the whole number of thirty-eight. the error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was later corrected. At the union of the two Grand Lodges of England the number was reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven.

 

At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organisation of the order of which he has become a member. But the information here given, is barren, and unworthy of his labour. The rank of the officers, and the required number can give no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony.

 

The reference to the organisation of the Masonic institution is intended to remind us of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilisation, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition. Masonry itself is the result of civilisation; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition to mankind.

 

All the monuments of antiquity prove that as man emerged from the savage to the social state then came the invention of architecture. As architecture developed as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the harshness of the seasons, with the mechanical arts connected with it, for as we began to erect solid and more stately edifices of stone, they imitated the parts which necessity had introduced into the primitive huts. and adapted them to there temples, which, although at first simple and rude, were in the course of time, and by the ingenuity of succeeding architects, wrought and improved to such a degree of perfection on different models, that each was by way of eminence, denominated an order of architecture.

 

Advancing in his progress the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive al our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is closely connected with operative instruction of Masonry, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the winding stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge

 

So far, then the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessarry and useful member of society. Still must he go onward and forward. the stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and further wisdoms are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber the abiding-place of truth, be reached.

 

In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolesed by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Masony is an institution of olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learningis one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.

 

In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These seven arts were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any question which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature.

 

But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the winding stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are truth, or the approximation to which it will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of Masonic symbolism that the Mason is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labours, is symbolised by the Word, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of nature, of God, and of man's relation to them, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. Only at the end of this life shall he know the origin of life.

 

The middle chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the Word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.G.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring Mason; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but he must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.

 

It is then, as a symbol, and as a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the winding stairs. if we attempt to adopt it as a historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire to thus impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as a historical narrative without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsman were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the Temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a winding staircase to the place where the wages of labour were received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life, in the full fruition of manhood, the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek truth and knowledge; to believe this, is to believe and to know the true design of Speculative Masonry, the only design which makes it worthy of a good and wise man's study.

 

2nd degree fellowcraft tracing board illustration.

 

On our way to the Sanctum Sanctorum, the newly made Mason undertakes a passage through what is commonly called the Middle Chamber. The reference into the middle way is through the temple of Solomon, and the pathway to the Holy of Holies, the adytum in which the Holy Ark of the covenant resides at the the Kodesh Hakodashim, or the place in which deity dwells. In that journey through the middle space, the Second degree brother is introduced to some of the more seemingly secular influenced aspects of the fraternity that begin to take on a double, or symbolic, meaning. On their surface, the basic notions of these things are obvious, but not until you start to look at them closely, at their deeper meanings, that we start to see their relationships to other more esoteric ideas. This is similar to religious traditions where withing one religious text there can be multiple layers of meaning, and multiple ways of interpretation which can lead to an allegorical, a moral, or a mystical meaning.

 

Indeed, as the degree is symbolically in King Solomon’s Temple, so to can it be seen as a symbolic metaphor to our own internal path, what Joseph Campbell calls the hero quest, and where you “leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height.”[1]

 

This is not to assume that the Masonic degrees have a similar relevancy to sacred or Masonic symbols, tracing board, second degree, 2 degreespiritual texts, though some could argue that their significance is almost as powerful to some observants. It is a system of morality that strives to make good men better, which runs nearly in parallel with the many Volumes of the Sacred Law which seeks similar outcomes to achieve as it outlines and instructs its path to elevation. Whether its salvation or spiritual awakening the holy books seek to instruct its adherents to live better lives through their faith, the same that Freemasonry strives to through its practice – to make those good men better. In that process of making the good man a candidate for the degrees is made an entered apprentice, symbolically as he ascends Jacob’s ladder. Once at the top, he is presented a series of three groups of symbols which are set before him to become a Second Degree mason so as they may observe and contemplate them in their path of progression, their hero’s quest, to the third degree.

 

The story of the degree, from Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor*, picks up after the passage between the twin pillars of the degree with the conductor delivering this instruction:

 

Brother, we will pursue our journey. The next thing that attracts our attention is the winding stairs which lead to the Middle Chamber of King Solomon’s Temple, consisting of three, five, and seven steps.

 

The first three allude to the three principal stages of human life, namely, youth, manhood, and old age. In youth, as Entered Apprentices, we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood, as Fellow Crafts, we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in old age, as Master Masons, we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.

 

They also allude to the three principal supports in Masonry, namely, Wisdom, Strength. and Beauty; for it is necessary that there should be wisdom to contrive, strength to support, and beauty to adorn all great and important undertakings.

 

They further allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.

 

Let’s pause here and consider what some of the deeper meanings of these first steps infer. The first segment is fairly straight forward; with narrative telling us that the three steps allude to the three stages of human life – Youth, Manhood, and Old Age.

 

Youth is defined as:

Young persons, collectively.

A young person; especially, a young man.

The quality or state of being young; youthfulness; juvenility.

The part of life that succeeds to childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to manhood.

 

from ThinkExist.com

This is a pretty straight forward idea, especially as it says to us that “we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge”, but how does this apply to an older initiate, someone who is no longer in his youth. Is it a wistful thought to what was achieved when younger and in still in school? Taken on a deeper level, it could allude to the idea of the degree itself, the First degree being synonymous to mean that in the first, the candidate comes to the lodge as a youth (despite his chronological or physical age) with a clean slate of perception and a clean pallet of interpretation. In a sense, he comes as blank slate to its teachings or to the ideas before him. The degree being his introduction from exterior life to interior life which ushers him both into the fraternity and into the concept of the undertaking. Pike, in the first degree lecture in Morals and Dogma, calls this the focusing of the aspirants “unregulated force” – the channel by which they constrain their previously raw, infantile state, into that of a focused and youthful aspirant no matter their age.

 

Next, the candidate enters into his Manhood, more literally the 2nd degree, of which the ceremony says of it “we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves” which is a really active process to live by. We, in essence, are to achieve much by way of our doing, essentially, the work of our daily life towards our deity in worship and practice, our community in which we live and reside, but more specifically as we apply it to ourselves in continuing to apply what we’ve learned in our youth to this state of existence.

 

The Free Dictionary defines Manhood as:

1. The state or time of being an adult male human.

2. The composite of qualities, such as courage, determination, and vigor, often thought to be appropriate to a man.

3. Adult males considered as a group; men.

4. The state of being human.

 

In the third entry, we can take much from it beyond it simply being our middle state of being. It is in fact our ability to BE in the first place, our SELF in daily practice. Interesting as this is, the second degree in which our further education takes place is not only about the practice of our youth but also our ability to learn and apply that education to our life.

 

Campbell says of the age progression that “As a child, you are brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and you are dependant on others. All this has to be transcended when you come to maturity, so that you can live not in dependency but with self-responsible authority.”[2] This is, in essence, the heart of the three degree progression and the fundamental of the three steps – he becoming a man (or woman, respecting your discipline)!

 

Old age is a bit more of a troubling and complex issue. So often in modern society we look at old age as a point of retirement where work and physical activity dramatically changes or diminishes. In this description, the idea of old age holds true in that the degree says of old age that in it “we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality”

 

There are several interesting meanings we can take from this especially that it is in the degrees that these physical changes are metaphorically said to take place which can become a literal interpretation, and that once attained the Master Mason can live through them – literally to reflect on the life well spent. What’s troubling here is that the major portion of the work of the lodge is spent in the third degree and a caution must be considered so as to not see the work of the Master Mason as just one of reflection and of casual rest lest no work, as described in Manhood, be completed.

 

Old Age is essentially defined as ones age nearing or passing the average life span of human beings, and thus at the end of the human life cycle. In the U.S. this is considered to be 78 years old giving a distinct impression as to when one should then become a True Master. It really is at a twilight of life period, one of great age and maturity where little change and much reflection takes place. This gives us an interesting perspective on the meaning as it implies a near end of physical life period of time which squares with the degrees lesson as the period of reflection of a life well spent. We become the Master of our all, ready to pass our knowledge on to the next generation.

 

With this vantage, we can take pause to deeply consider that our daily working of the degrees, intrinsically, could (or should) be conducted in the 2nd state, our manhood in which we conversely learn and grow.

 

Cirlot, in his Dictionary of Symbols, makes an interesting point in that the idea of progression in the stages of age is not unique to Masonry. Besides the stages themselves, the number three (3) is a representation of synthesis and unites the “solution of conflict posed by dualism.” In other words, the third object brings about balance for the first two opposing states. Think of the balance of three dots, one stacked above two.

 

From this point, the degree breaks off to correlate these first steps with the three principal pillars of the lodge as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty which also has an interesting Kabalistic point of reference in the three pillars that make up the structure of the tree of life. Keep in mind, the orientation assumes the viewer reverse the structure to mirror ones own standing rather than simply reflect the observer.

 

Wisdom, the left hand pillar of mercy, is an active pillar and representativeof alchemical fire, which is the principal of spirituality, often called the pillar of Jachin. It is a masculine pillar, and relates to our mental energy, our loving kindness, and our creative inspiration as we traverse it up the Kabbalaistic tree through the Sephirot.

 

Strength is the right hand pillar and takes the form of severity, shaped into the alchemical symbol of water. It can represent darkness, but it is a passive symbol that is feminine in nature and called the pillar of Boaz. Upon it we find the points of our thoughts and ideas, our feelings and emotions, and the physicality of our physical experience, our sensations, each an aspect of its Cabalistic progression.

 

Beauty, then, takes on the role of synthesis of the two, the pillar of mildness; it is upon this pillar that the novitiate is transformed through his progressive states as he progresses. The central pillar of Beauty is representative of Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton which represents deity itself"mercurial transformation" upon which our crown of being resides balanced through feeling and emotion from our foundation of justice and mercy, all of which springs from our link to the everyday world.

 

These aspects of the Kabbalah are not specific attributes of the study in the blue lodge, rather elements of deeper esoteric study, found more specifically in the degrees of the Scottish Rite. Because of the pillars, and their deeper symbolic meaning, it does, however, necessitate looking at them deeper to see the relationship between them as the blue lodge degrees seem to have parallels in the study of the Kabbalah – a happy accident at some time past or with purpose to link the ideas together. Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty are specific aspects of the lower three degrees and emphasized here in the first three steps into the middle chamber, necessitating their deeper esoteric study to fully grasp their broader importance.

 

As the degree instructs – Wisdom is to contrive, Strength is to support, and Beauty is to adorn all great and important undertakings – which are the fundamentals of the three pillars in the Kabbalaistic study.

 

Conversely, as the degree states, these three pillars “allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.” and can be interpreted as such in both a micro (in lodge) fashion and in a broader macro tradition of Masonry itself – in this Kabbalaistic formulation. When the alchemical aspects of wisdom and strength are combined we can see the 6 pointed star appears, the symbol of transformation, often depicted in the conjoining of the square and compass in which Masons are instructed to square their actions and circumscribe their passions, which also corresponds to the link between the Saints Johns – the Baptist as the principal of alchemical water, and the Evangelist as the symbol of alchemical fire, both of whom have much deeper esoteric connections in Masonry. Also, the figures of the lodge leadership have a deeper connection as you begin to look at their alchemical connections too, when you look at their relationship to the Sun and moon, and the aspirant candidate as the solution of conflict, as Cirlot described, and as defined in the first degree – the three sphere aspect to balance the two of conflict.

 

From these short first few tentative steps, we can see that there is a wealth of Masonic symbols at hand, but we are only one third into our progression. Our next step takes us deeper into the middle chamber to its central position where we encounter an interesting juxtaposition of the physical world to our very human aspect of being through our senses.

 

For now, reflect a time on these first three steps and consider what comes next upon the path.

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Museum of Freemasonry - Masonic Library - Note my reflection!

 

Lecture: The Legend Of The Winding Stairs

 

In an investigation of the symbolism of the winding stairs, we shall be directed to the true explanation by a reference to there origin, there number, the objects which they recall, and there termination, but above all by a consideration of the great design which an assent upon them was intended to accomplish.

 

The steps of this winding staircase commenced we are informed, at the porch of the Temple; that is to say, at its very entrance. But nothing is more undoubted in the science of Masonic symbolism than that the Temple was the representative of the world purified by the Divine Presence. The world of the profane is without the Temple; the world of the initiated is within its sacred walls. Hence to enter the Temple, to pass within the porch, to be made a mason, and to be born into the world of Masonic light, are all synonymous terms. Here, then, the symbolism of the winding stairs begins.

 

The Apprentice having entered within the porch of the temple, has begun his Masonic life. But the first degree in masonry, is only a preparation and purification for something higher. The Entered Apprentice is the child in Masonry. the lessons which he receives are simply intended to cleanse the heart and prepare the recipient for that mental illumination which is to be given in the succeeding degrees.

 

As a Fellow Craft, he has advanced another step, and as the degree is emblematic of youth, so it is here that the intellectual education of the candidate begins. And therefore, here, at the very spot which separates the porch from the sanctuary, where childhood ends and manhood begins, he finds stretching out before him a winding stair which invites him, as it were, to ascend, and which, as the symbol of discipline and instruction, teaches him that here must commence his Masonic labour here he must enter upon those glorious though difficult researches the end of which is to be in the possession of divine truth. The winding stairs begin after the candidate has passed within the porch and between the pillars of strength and establishment, as a significant symbol to teach him that as soon as he has passed beyond the years of irrational childhood, and commenced his entrance upon manly life, the laborious task of self-improvement is the first duty placed before him. He cannot stand still; his destiny requires him to ascend, step by step, until he has reached the summit, where the treasures of knowledge await him

 

The numbers of these steps in all the systems is odd. The coincidence is at least curious that the ancient temples were always ascended by an odd number of steps; so that commencing with the right foot at the bottom, the worshipper would find the same foot foremost when he entered the temple, which was considered as a fortunate omen. But the fact is, that the symbolism of numbers was borrowed by the masons from Pythagoras, in whose system of philosophy it plays an important part, and in which odd numbers were considered as more perfect than even ones. Hence, throughout the Masonic system we find a predominance of odd numbers, and while three, five, seven, and nine, are all-important symbols, we seldom find a reference to two, four, six, or eight. The odd number of stairs was therefore intended to symbolise the idea of perfection, to which it was the object of the aspirant to attain.

 

As to the particular number of the stairs, this has varied at different periods. The Tracing-boards of the nineteenth century have been found, in which only five steps are delineated, and others in which they amount to seven. The prestonian lectures, used at the beginning of the century gave the whole number of thirty-eight. the error of making an even number, which was a violation of the Pythagorean principle of odd numbers as the symbol of perfection, was later corrected. At the union of the two Grand Lodges of England the number was reduced to fifteen, divided into three series of three, five, and seven.

 

At the first pause which he makes he is instructed in the peculiar organisation of the order of which he has become a member. But the information here given, is barren, and unworthy of his labour. The rank of the officers, and the required number can give no knowledge which he has not before possessed. We must look therefore to the symbolic meaning of these allusions for any value which may be attached to this part of the ceremony.

 

The reference to the organisation of the Masonic institution is intended to remind us of the union of men in society, and the development of the social state out of the state of nature. He is thus reminded, in the very outset of his journey, of the blessings which arise from civilisation, and of the fruits of virtue and knowledge which are derived from that condition. Masonry itself is the result of civilisation; while, in grateful return, it has been one of the most important means of extending that condition to mankind.

 

All the monuments of antiquity prove that as man emerged from the savage to the social state then came the invention of architecture. As architecture developed as a means of providing convenient dwellings and necessary shelter from the harshness of the seasons, with the mechanical arts connected with it, for as we began to erect solid and more stately edifices of stone, they imitated the parts which necessity had introduced into the primitive huts. and adapted them to there temples, which, although at first simple and rude, were in the course of time, and by the ingenuity of succeeding architects, wrought and improved to such a degree of perfection on different models, that each was by way of eminence, denominated an order of architecture.

 

Advancing in his progress the candidate is invited to contemplate another series of instructions. The human senses, as the appropriate channels through which we receive al our ideas of perception, and which, therefore, constitute the most important sources of our knowledge, are here referred to as a symbol of intellectual cultivation. Architecture, as the most important of the arts which conduce to comfort of mankind, is also alluded to here, not simply because it is closely connected with operative instruction of Masonry, but also as the type of all the other useful arts. In his second pause, in the ascent of the winding stairs, the aspirant is therefore reminded of the necessity of cultivating practical knowledge

 

So far, then the instructions he has received relate to his own condition in society as a member of the great social compact, and to his means of becoming, by a knowledge of the arts of practical life, a necessarry and useful member of society. Still must he go onward and forward. the stair is still before him; its summit is not yet reached, and further wisdoms are to be sought for, or the reward will not be gained, nor the middle chamber the abiding-place of truth, be reached.

 

In his third pause, he therefore arrives at that point in which the whole circle of human science is to be explained. Symbols, we know, are in themselves arbitrary and of conventional signification, and the complete circle of human science might have been as well symbolesed by any other sign or series of doctrines as by the seven liberal arts and sciences. But Masony is an institution of olden time; and this selection of the liberal arts and sciences as a symbol of the completion of human learningis one of the most pregnant evidences that we have of its antiquity.

 

In the seventh century, and for a long time afterwards, the circle of instruction to which all the learning of the most eminent schools and most distinguished philosophers was confined, was limited to what were then called the liberal arts and sciences, and consisted of two branches, the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the quadrivium comprehended arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. These seven arts were supposed to include universal knowledge. He who was master of these was thought to have no need of a preceptor to explain any books or to solve any question which lay within the compass of human reason, the knowledge of the trivium having furnished him with the key to all language, and that of the quadrivium having opened to him the secret laws of nature.

 

But we are not yet done. It will be remembered that a reward was promised for all this toilsome ascent of the winding stairs. Now, what are the wages of a Speculative Mason? Not money, nor corn, nor wine, nor oil. All these are but symbols. His wages are truth, or the approximation to which it will be most appropriate to the degree into which he has been initiated. It is one of the most beautiful, but at the same time most abstruse, doctrines of the science of Masonic symbolism that the Mason is ever to be in search of truth, but is never to find it. This divine truth, the object of all his labours, is symbolised by the Word, for which we all know he can only obtain a substitute; and this is intended to teach the humiliating but necessary lesson that the knowledge of nature, of God, and of man's relation to them, which knowledge constitutes divine truth, can never be acquired in this life. Only at the end of this life shall he know the origin of life.

 

The middle chamber is therefore symbolic of this life, where the symbol only of the Word can be given, where the truth is to be reached by approximation only, and yet where we are to learn that truth will consist in a perfect knowledge of the G.G.O.T.U. This is the reward of the inquiring Mason; in this consist the wages of a Fellow Craft; he is directed to the truth, but he must travel farther and ascend still higher to attain it.

 

It is then, as a symbol, and as a symbol only, that we must study this beautiful legend of the winding stairs. if we attempt to adopt it as a historical fact, the absurdity of its details stares us in the face, and wise men will wonder at our credulity. Its inventors had no desire to thus impose upon our folly; but offering it to us as a great philosophical myth, they did not for a moment suppose that we would pass over its sublime moral teachings to accept the allegory as a historical narrative without meaning, and wholly irreconcilable with the records of Scripture, and opposed by all the principles of probability. To suppose that eighty thousand craftsman were weekly paid in the narrow precincts of the Temple chambers, is simply to suppose an absurdity. But to believe that all this pictorial representation of an ascent by a winding staircase to the place where the wages of labour were received, was an allegory to teach us the ascent of the mind from ignorance, through all the toils of study and the difficulties of obtaining knowledge, receiving here a little and there a little, adding something to the stock of our ideas at each step, until, in the middle chamber of life, in the full fruition of manhood, the reward is attained, and the purified and elevated intellect is invested with the reward in the direction how to seek truth and knowledge; to believe this, is to believe and to know the true design of Speculative Masonry, the only design which makes it worthy of a good and wise man's study.

 

2nd degree fellowcraft tracing board illustration.

 

On our way to the Sanctum Sanctorum, the newly made Mason undertakes a passage through what is commonly called the Middle Chamber. The reference into the middle way is through the temple of Solomon, and the pathway to the Holy of Holies, the adytum in which the Holy Ark of the covenant resides at the the Kodesh Hakodashim, or the place in which deity dwells. In that journey through the middle space, the Second degree brother is introduced to some of the more seemingly secular influenced aspects of the fraternity that begin to take on a double, or symbolic, meaning. On their surface, the basic notions of these things are obvious, but not until you start to look at them closely, at their deeper meanings, that we start to see their relationships to other more esoteric ideas. This is similar to religious traditions where withing one religious text there can be multiple layers of meaning, and multiple ways of interpretation which can lead to an allegorical, a moral, or a mystical meaning.

 

Indeed, as the degree is symbolically in King Solomon’s Temple, so to can it be seen as a symbolic metaphor to our own internal path, what Joseph Campbell calls the hero quest, and where you “leave the world that you you’re in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height.”[1]

 

This is not to assume that the Masonic degrees have a similar relevancy to sacred or Masonic symbols, tracing board, second degree, 2 degreespiritual texts, though some could argue that their significance is almost as powerful to some observants. It is a system of morality that strives to make good men better, which runs nearly in parallel with the many Volumes of the Sacred Law which seeks similar outcomes to achieve as it outlines and instructs its path to elevation. Whether its salvation or spiritual awakening the holy books seek to instruct its adherents to live better lives through their faith, the same that Freemasonry strives to through its practice – to make those good men better. In that process of making the good man a candidate for the degrees is made an entered apprentice, symbolically as he ascends Jacob’s ladder. Once at the top, he is presented a series of three groups of symbols which are set before him to become a Second Degree mason so as they may observe and contemplate them in their path of progression, their hero’s quest, to the third degree.

 

The story of the degree, from Duncan’s Masonic Ritual and Monitor*, picks up after the passage between the twin pillars of the degree with the conductor delivering this instruction:

 

Brother, we will pursue our journey. The next thing that attracts our attention is the winding stairs which lead to the Middle Chamber of King Solomon’s Temple, consisting of three, five, and seven steps.

 

The first three allude to the three principal stages of human life, namely, youth, manhood, and old age. In youth, as Entered Apprentices, we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge; in manhood, as Fellow Crafts, we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves; so that in old age, as Master Masons, we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality.

 

They also allude to the three principal supports in Masonry, namely, Wisdom, Strength. and Beauty; for it is necessary that there should be wisdom to contrive, strength to support, and beauty to adorn all great and important undertakings.

 

They further allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.

 

Let’s pause here and consider what some of the deeper meanings of these first steps infer. The first segment is fairly straight forward; with narrative telling us that the three steps allude to the three stages of human life – Youth, Manhood, and Old Age.

 

Youth is defined as:

Young persons, collectively.

A young person; especially, a young man.

The quality or state of being young; youthfulness; juvenility.

The part of life that succeeds to childhood; the period of existence preceding maturity or age; the whole early part of life, from childhood, or, sometimes, from infancy, to manhood.

 

from ThinkExist.com

This is a pretty straight forward idea, especially as it says to us that “we ought industriously to occupy our minds in the attainment of useful knowledge”, but how does this apply to an older initiate, someone who is no longer in his youth. Is it a wistful thought to what was achieved when younger and in still in school? Taken on a deeper level, it could allude to the idea of the degree itself, the First degree being synonymous to mean that in the first, the candidate comes to the lodge as a youth (despite his chronological or physical age) with a clean slate of perception and a clean pallet of interpretation. In a sense, he comes as blank slate to its teachings or to the ideas before him. The degree being his introduction from exterior life to interior life which ushers him both into the fraternity and into the concept of the undertaking. Pike, in the first degree lecture in Morals and Dogma, calls this the focusing of the aspirants “unregulated force” – the channel by which they constrain their previously raw, infantile state, into that of a focused and youthful aspirant no matter their age.

 

Next, the candidate enters into his Manhood, more literally the 2nd degree, of which the ceremony says of it “we should apply our knowledge to the discharge of our respective duties to God, our neighbors, and ourselves” which is a really active process to live by. We, in essence, are to achieve much by way of our doing, essentially, the work of our daily life towards our deity in worship and practice, our community in which we live and reside, but more specifically as we apply it to ourselves in continuing to apply what we’ve learned in our youth to this state of existence.

 

The Free Dictionary defines Manhood as:

1. The state or time of being an adult male human.

2. The composite of qualities, such as courage, determination, and vigor, often thought to be appropriate to a man.

3. Adult males considered as a group; men.

4. The state of being human.

 

In the third entry, we can take much from it beyond it simply being our middle state of being. It is in fact our ability to BE in the first place, our SELF in daily practice. Interesting as this is, the second degree in which our further education takes place is not only about the practice of our youth but also our ability to learn and apply that education to our life.

 

Campbell says of the age progression that “As a child, you are brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and you are dependant on others. All this has to be transcended when you come to maturity, so that you can live not in dependency but with self-responsible authority.”[2] This is, in essence, the heart of the three degree progression and the fundamental of the three steps – he becoming a man (or woman, respecting your discipline)!

 

Old age is a bit more of a troubling and complex issue. So often in modern society we look at old age as a point of retirement where work and physical activity dramatically changes or diminishes. In this description, the idea of old age holds true in that the degree says of old age that in it “we may enjoy the happy reflections consequent on a well-spent life, and die in the hope of a glorious immortality”

 

There are several interesting meanings we can take from this especially that it is in the degrees that these physical changes are metaphorically said to take place which can become a literal interpretation, and that once attained the Master Mason can live through them – literally to reflect on the life well spent. What’s troubling here is that the major portion of the work of the lodge is spent in the third degree and a caution must be considered so as to not see the work of the Master Mason as just one of reflection and of casual rest lest no work, as described in Manhood, be completed.

 

Old Age is essentially defined as ones age nearing or passing the average life span of human beings, and thus at the end of the human life cycle. In the U.S. this is considered to be 78 years old giving a distinct impression as to when one should then become a True Master. It really is at a twilight of life period, one of great age and maturity where little change and much reflection takes place. This gives us an interesting perspective on the meaning as it implies a near end of physical life period of time which squares with the degrees lesson as the period of reflection of a life well spent. We become the Master of our all, ready to pass our knowledge on to the next generation.

 

With this vantage, we can take pause to deeply consider that our daily working of the degrees, intrinsically, could (or should) be conducted in the 2nd state, our manhood in which we conversely learn and grow.

 

Cirlot, in his Dictionary of Symbols, makes an interesting point in that the idea of progression in the stages of age is not unique to Masonry. Besides the stages themselves, the number three (3) is a representation of synthesis and unites the “solution of conflict posed by dualism.” In other words, the third object brings about balance for the first two opposing states. Think of the balance of three dots, one stacked above two.

 

From this point, the degree breaks off to correlate these first steps with the three principal pillars of the lodge as Wisdom, Strength and Beauty which also has an interesting Kabalistic point of reference in the three pillars that make up the structure of the tree of life. Keep in mind, the orientation assumes the viewer reverse the structure to mirror ones own standing rather than simply reflect the observer.

 

Wisdom, the left hand pillar of mercy, is an active pillar and representativeof alchemical fire, which is the principal of spirituality, often called the pillar of Jachin. It is a masculine pillar, and relates to our mental energy, our loving kindness, and our creative inspiration as we traverse it up the Kabbalaistic tree through the Sephirot.

 

Strength is the right hand pillar and takes the form of severity, shaped into the alchemical symbol of water. It can represent darkness, but it is a passive symbol that is feminine in nature and called the pillar of Boaz. Upon it we find the points of our thoughts and ideas, our feelings and emotions, and the physicality of our physical experience, our sensations, each an aspect of its Cabalistic progression.

 

Beauty, then, takes on the role of synthesis of the two, the pillar of mildness; it is upon this pillar that the novitiate is transformed through his progressive states as he progresses. The central pillar of Beauty is representative of Jehovah, the Tetragrammaton which represents deity itself"mercurial transformation" upon which our crown of being resides balanced through feeling and emotion from our foundation of justice and mercy, all of which springs from our link to the everyday world.

 

These aspects of the Kabbalah are not specific attributes of the study in the blue lodge, rather elements of deeper esoteric study, found more specifically in the degrees of the Scottish Rite. Because of the pillars, and their deeper symbolic meaning, it does, however, necessitate looking at them deeper to see the relationship between them as the blue lodge degrees seem to have parallels in the study of the Kabbalah – a happy accident at some time past or with purpose to link the ideas together. Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty are specific aspects of the lower three degrees and emphasized here in the first three steps into the middle chamber, necessitating their deeper esoteric study to fully grasp their broader importance.

 

As the degree instructs – Wisdom is to contrive, Strength is to support, and Beauty is to adorn all great and important undertakings – which are the fundamentals of the three pillars in the Kabbalaistic study.

 

Conversely, as the degree states, these three pillars “allude to the three principal officers of the Lodge, viz.: Master, and Senior and Junior Wardens.” and can be interpreted as such in both a micro (in lodge) fashion and in a broader macro tradition of Masonry itself – in this Kabbalaistic formulation. When the alchemical aspects of wisdom and strength are combined we can see the 6 pointed star appears, the symbol of transformation, often depicted in the conjoining of the square and compass in which Masons are instructed to square their actions and circumscribe their passions, which also corresponds to the link between the Saints Johns – the Baptist as the principal of alchemical water, and the Evangelist as the symbol of alchemical fire, both of whom have much deeper esoteric connections in Masonry. Also, the figures of the lodge leadership have a deeper connection as you begin to look at their alchemical connections too, when you look at their relationship to the Sun and moon, and the aspirant candidate as the solution of conflict, as Cirlot described, and as defined in the first degree – the three sphere aspect to balance the two of conflict.

 

From these short first few tentative steps, we can see that there is a wealth of Masonic symbols at hand, but we are only one third into our progression. Our next step takes us deeper into the middle chamber to its central position where we encounter an interesting juxtaposition of the physical world to our very human aspect of being through our senses.

 

For now, reflect a time on these first three steps and consider what comes next upon the path.

Maurice de Vlaminck

(Parigi, 4 aprile 1876 – Rueil-la-Gadelière, 11 ottobre 1958) pittore francese

  

Virgilio Guidi

(Roma, 4 aprile 1891 – Venezia, 7 gennaio 1984) pittore, poeta e saggista italiano

  

Martin Luther King

(Atlanta, 15 gennaio 1929 – Memphis, 4 aprile 1968)

leader dei diritti civili.

  

Salvatore Sciarrino

(Palermo, 4 aprile 1947) compositore

  

Ultime Rose (da "Vanitas") (1981)

youtu.be/IZD7I0qAfpM

Macbeth (2002)

youtu.be/SVX0INPbBjw

  

4 aprile 1778 - La Clemenza di Scipione, opera seria di Johann Christian Bach, viene eseguita per la prima volta, nel King’s Theatre di Londra. || 4 April 1778 - La Clemenza di Scipione, an opera seria by Johann Christian Bach to words of an unknown author, is performed for the first time, in King’s Theatre, London.

youtu.be/qEZohNlkohk

  

4 aprile 1779 - La Messa in do " Krönungsmesse" K.317 di Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart viene eseguita per la prima volta nella Cattedrale di Salisburgo. || 4 April 1779 - The Mass in C “Coronation” K.317 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is performed for the first time in the Salzburg Cathedral.

youtu.be/DqeaIsdjloo

  

4 aprile 1819 - Zemire und Azor, opera di Louis Spohr su libretto di Ihlee (da Marmontel), viene eseguita per la prima volta a Frankfurt-am-Main, alla vigilia del 35 ° compleanno del compositore. || 4 April 1819 - Zemire und Azor, an opera by Louis Spohr to words of Ihlee after Marmontel, is performed for the first time, in Frankfurt-am-Main, on the eve of the composer’s 35th birthday.

youtu.be/DaQfgShcWmI

  

4 aprile 1843 - Kirchliche Fest-Ouvertüre über den Choral "Ein feste Burg è unser Gott" op.31 per coro, orchestra e organo di Otto Nicolai viene eseguita per la prima volta a Lipsia. || 4 April 1843 - Kirchliche Fest-Ouvertüre über den Choral “Ein feste Burg is unser Gott” op.31 for chorus, orchestra and organ by Otto Nicolai is performed for the first time, in Leipzig.

youtu.be/csU1vOWm0LY

  

4 Aprile 1859 - Le pardon de Ploërmel, opéra comique di Giacomo Meyerbeer su libretto di Barbier e Carré, viene eseguita per la prima volta al Théâtre Favart, Parigi. || 4 April 1859 - Le pardon de Ploërmel, an opéra comique by Giacomo Meyerbeer to words of Barbier and Carré, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre Favart, Paris.

youtu.be/1dzS7oFRSnc

  

4 Aprile 1861 - Perpetuum mobile, op.257, scherzo musicale di Johann Strauss, viene eseguita per la prima volta allo Schwender Coliseum di Vienna. || 4 April 1861 - Perpetuum mobile, op.257, a musical joke by Johann Strauss, is performed for the first time, in Schwender’s Coliseum, Vienna.

youtu.be/b-2j_27FeH0

  

4 aprile 1862 - Tre canzoni di Johannes Brahms vengono eseguite per la prima volta, ad Amburgo: Vor dem Fenster op.14 / 1 e Ein Sonnett op.14 / 4, testi di anonimo, e Keinen hat es noch gereut op.33 / 1 versi di Tieck. || 4 April 1862 - Three songs by Johannes Brahms are performed for the first time, in Hamburg: Vor dem Fensterop.14/1 and Ein Sonnett op.14/4, to anonymous words, and Keinen hat es noch gereut op.33/1 to words of Tieck.

youtu.be/YafXGf2RT4k

  

4 Apr 1867 - Due opere di Camille Saint-Saëns vengono eseguite per la prima volta al Théâtre des Champs-Elysées sotto la direzione del compositore stesso: Concerto per violino e orchestra n.1 op.20 e Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso per violino e orchestra op .28. || 4 April 1867 - Two works by Camille Saint-Saëns are performed for the first time at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées conducted by the composer: Concerto for violin and orchestra no.1 op.20 and Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso for violin and orchestra op.28.

youtu.be/JaPffjuVgC0

  

4 aprile 1869 - Könisgslieder op.334, valzer di Johann Strauss, viene eseguito per la prima volta, nel Gartenbau di Vienna. || 4 April 1869 - Könisgslieder op.334, a waltz by Johann Strauss, is performed for the first time, in the Gartenbau, Vienna.

youtu.be/egWbv6CcCeQ

  

4 Aprile 1875 - Vltava (Moldava), poema sinfonico (da Ma Vlast) di Bedrich Smetana viene eseguita per la prima volta, davanti al pubblico di Praga, che comprende Leos Janácek. || 4 April 1875 - Vltava (Die Moldau), a symphonic poem from Ma Vlast by Bedrich Smetana is performed for the first time, before a Prague audience which includes Leos Janácek.

youtu.be/gTKsHwqaIr4

  

4 aprile 1915 – Il Nunc dimittis per coro di Gustav Holst viene eseguito per la prima volta, nella Cattedrale di Westminster, a Londra. || 4 April 1915 - A Nunc dimittis for chorus by Gustav Holst is performed for the first time, in Westminster Cathedral, London.

youtu.be/p_UY5ubFUFk

  

4 Aprile 1920 - Inno della Terra op.95, cantata di Jean Sibelius su testo di Leino, per coro e orchestra, viene eseguita per la prima volta a Helsinki. || 4 April 1920 - Hymn of the Earth op.95, a cantata by Jean Sibelius to words of Leino, for chorus and orchestra, is performed for the first time in Helsinki.

youtu.be/P0TvKuKVEaM

  

4 aprile 1938 - Inno Finlandia op.113/12 per coro maschile e harmonium di Jean Sibelius, testo di Sola viene eseguito per la prima volta a Helsinki. 4 April 1938 - Finlandia Hymn op.113/12 for male chorus and harmonium by Jean Sibelius to words of Sola is performed for the first time in Helsinki.

youtu.be/0lCnguTtsSQ

  

4 aprile 1941 - Quattro canzoni op.13 di Samuel Barber vengono eseguite per la prima volta, a Filadelfia. || 4 April 1941 - Four Songs op.13 by Samuel Barber are performed for the first time, in Philadelphia.

youtu.be/tPffhQt4nyo

  

4 aprile 1955 - Greeting Prelude di Igor Stravinsky , per orchestra, composto per celebrare l’80esimo compleanno di Pierre Monteux, viene eseguito per la prima volta a Boston. || 4 April 1955 - Igor Stravinsky’s Greeting Prelude for orchestra, composed to celebrate the 80th birthday of Pierre Monteux, is performed for the first time in Boston.

youtu.be/0z815Kqiy1Q

  

4 apr 1957 - Sinfonia no.10 "Amerindia Sinfonia" per tenore, baritono, basso, coro e orchestra di Heitor Villa-Lobos su testo di de Anchieta, commissionata nel 1952 per celebrare il 400 ° anniversario della fondazione di San Paolo, viene eseguita per la prima volta al Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Parigi sotto la direzione del compositore. || 4 April 1957 - Symphony no.10 “Sinfonia amerindia” for tenor, baritone, bass, chorus, and orchestra by Heitor Villa-Lobos to words of de Anchieta, commissioned to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of São Paulo (1952) , is performed for the first time, in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris under the baton of the composer.

youtu.be/EppdZvDl-xg

  

4 Aprile 1961 – La Sinfonia no.10 di Darius Milhaud, commissionata per celebrare il 100° anniversario dello Stato dell'Oregon, viene eseguita per la prima volta a Portland. || 4 April 1961 - Symphony no.10 by Darius Milhaud, commissioned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the State of Oregon, is performed for the first time, in Portland.

youtu.be/Pl6lZjWdTHI

  

4 aprile 1963 - Aventures per tre cantanti e sette strumentisti di György Ligeti viene eseguita per la prima volta ad Amburgo. || 4 April 1963 - Aventures for three singers and seven instrumentalists by György Ligeti is performed for the first time, Hamburg.

youtu.be/JPa4XAhSYhE

  

4 aprile 1963 - Andromache’s Farewell op.39 per soprano e orchestra di Samuel Barber su testo di Euripide viene eseguita per la prima volta nel Lincoln Center di New York. || 4 April 1963 - Andromache’s Farewell op.39 for soprano and orchestra by Samuel Barber to words of Euripides is performed for the first time, in Lincoln Center, New York.

youtu.be/TmQHcRoMliE

  

4 Aprile 1967 - Telemanniana per orchestra di Hans Werner Henze viene eseguita per la prima volta a Berlino. || 4 April 1967 - Telemanniana for orchestra by Hans Werner Henze is performed for the first time, in Berlin.

youtu.be/n2bWEUH4hnY

  

4 aprile 1969 - Nomos gamma per orchestra di Iannis Xenakis viene eseguita per la prima volta a Royan, Francia. Anche in anteprima è Quadrivium per orchestra di Bruno Maderna. || 4 April 1969 - Nomos gamma for orchestra by Iannis Xenakis is performed for the first time, in Royan, France. Also premiered is Quadrivium for orchestra by Bruno Maderna.

youtu.be/oINqNmiXHrU

  

4 aprile 1971 - Concordanza per ensemble da camera di Sofia Gubaidulina viene eseguita per la prima volta a Royan. || 4 April 1971 - Concordanza for chamber ensemble by Sofia Gubaidulina is performed for the first time in Royan.

youtu.be/MDRDkljsuRw

  

4 aprile 1975 - Al gran sole Carico d'amore, azione scenica di Luigi Nono su testi di vari autori, viene eseguita per la prima volta nel Teatro alla Scala di Milano. || 4 April 1975 - Al gran sole carico d’amore, a scenic action by Luigi Nono to words of various authors, is performed for the first time in Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

youtu.be/UrASk7mtkVU

 

The Symbolism on Our Lodge Officers

 

by Norman Senn, P.M. Mosaic

Lodge #176 Fiat Lux Lodge of Research #1980

 

It is often said that symbolism is carried too far and this is

difficult to deny when I think of Freud and other psychiatrists and psychologists who seem able to find strange and often erotic meanings in all they see. The meanings given to every image based on repetition makes the lay-person feel at a serious disadvantage when they wish to contradict anything that is given a meaning by such "Specialists." The symbolic object, which is dredged up by the mind, seems to have no great pattern of consistency in the case of psychiatric symbol definition.

We are more fortunate in Freemasonry because we possess a body of ritualistic work which defines many of our symbols in at least one way. This allows us to look at our symbols in two distinct ways, the first being in the way our teachings say and secondly at the common meaning given to the same symbol by the profane. The similarity is usually very close but the range of meanings in the outside world is frequently much broader.

 

When a new mason asks the question about symbols, "what is that?",

or "what does that mean?", do we tend to back off? Do we have the

feeling that these are 'old' symbols, that really have no meaning

in our modern world? If this is the case, then we are in very

serious trouble within our Lodges because the Charge at our

installations very clearly states that "...it inculcates principles

of the purest morality, though veiled in allegory and illustrated

by symbols." We are also told in the same Charge that to penetrate

through the veil of the allegories and symbols is to understand the

mysteries. While there is a far deeper meaning in the overall

pattern of the craft, it is of great value to find some meanings of

the individual symbols and to attempt to recall that meaning on

each occasion that we see them. This creates the 'repetition' form

of learning that begins to modify our life style to become that

"better man" we all strive for.

One of the problems with the human mind is that it tends to ignore

items which it registers frequently. We are the last ones to see

our children grow, and need a visitor to bring this to our

attention. So it is, with the jewels worn by the officers of our

Lodges. How many of you have looked at your officers jewels -

really looked. Firstly they are quite detailed, secondly they

frequently have things on them that you were totally unaware of.

There are different companies producing jewels and each may embe

llish the jewels differently, but you can be sure that there is

meaning behind practically every identifiable whirl and loop.

In addition to the symbols on the jewel, each of these is suspended

from a collar which may also have symbols upon it. Then the

Officers also have an apron, often the same as yours, and this has

detail on it that we tend to observe when it is first presented to

us, but then we never consider it again.

What I hope to do in a short period of time, is to look at some of

the jewel, collar, and apron symbols and consider some of the

meanings that are taught us and then also some of meanings which

are known to be fairly common in the everyday world. There will be

areas where we skip over areas lightly, there will be a few

diversions, but I hope that you will consider your Lodge jewels a

little differently in the future.

A final point before starting is that all masonic symbols are

positive, none are aimed at anything that is not for the good of

the mason as an individual, and through him, for the world at

large. We degrade no symbol and none can ever be considered to be

contrary to the high principles we extol. Remember that there is

no right or wrong to symbolism - it is what you accept as

meaningful to you as a Craftsman. The following are my findings

and interpretations and it is quite likely that you will have diffe

rent interpretations, but I wish to share my findings with you.

The Master carries with him, a great symbol. If you are of a York

Mason you will learn that it is immoveable, whereas if you use the

Canadian Work, that it is moveable. The square is the symbol of

regulated life and actions. It is the masonic rule for correcting

and harmonising conduct on principles or morality and virtue, and

as a symbol, it is dedicated to the Master. We also identify

ourselves with this symbol, because we are taught that squares,

levels and perpendiculars are the proper signs to know a mason.

 

We are surrounded by squares in our Lodge for every mason wears at

least one although the Immediate Past Master and the Past Masters

wear it most obviously. It stands, as one of the Great Lights, in

the centre of all our activities and its legs constantly embrace

the Worshipful Master. It is repeated in our F.C. salute, our feet

positions, our way of moving around the Lodge and our legs when at

the altar in our initiation.

History tells us that the square, which is an upright with a right

top arm, is the Greek letter gamma. Each one of us knows the

meanings associated with the letter G. In the construction trade,

the square is used for "trueing" stones and "proving" them correct.

We can see how easily, the association with truth and virtue could

arise. There was the historical belief that the shape of the

ancient world was an oblong square and this is represented in our

"squared Lodge."

There have been references to the square's meaning as a symbol long

before the start of Masonry, as we know it. The Egyptians believed

that truth and justice were 'on the square', Confucius in about 500

BC referred to the squareness of actions. Mencius, the Chinese

philosopher of about 372 BC refers to square actions. Simonides of

Ceos, the Greek lyrical poet of about 600 BC and Aristotle in about

350 BC refer to 'square actions' and associate this with honest

dealings, high morality and virtue.

The symbol is not original, it is certainly far from new, but it

seems to have a remarkable consistency of meaning.

If we move on to the Immediate Past Master's jewel for a moment we

observe that it is identical to the Master's in shape except that

pendant from it is the 47th problem of Euclid. It is important to

remember that Euclid only proved the Pythagorean theorem of about

300 years earlier. When you consider what the theorem shows it is

a multitude of further squares. Squares on sides, mathematically

'squared' numbers and a central closed square, about which all the

'proof' stands. As an emphasis of the square symbol we could see

nothing which could do it better. We should know that the

properties of this triangular arrangement were first thought to be

magical in the relationship they demonstrated. In addition,

Pythagoras, being Greek, may have had the Greek letter/symbol G in

his mind when he is reputed to have exclaimed 'Eureka' and it is

for us to decide if the utility or the symbolism had generated his

joy. We learn in our work that we are to be inspired to lov e the

arts and sciences by this design and pro of. We should always

marvel that such a simple figure could have had such impact on our

world.

You may think that we should move on to the next set of jewels at

this point but hold ... there is more, much more that we can find

at this time on the jewels that we have considered - look at the

design on them. Now do not think that we will find new figures on

all the other jewels but the jewels of the three principal officers

are the most embellished and we will stay for a little longer here.

In the angle of the square is the sun, radiant with its beams and

with a rather clear face on it. Was this doodling the work of a

metal worker with time on his hands? Of course not, for the

historical significance of the sun as a symbol is an integral part

of all our Lodge work. We refer to the sun in many places and also

copy it is many actions. At the opening and closing of the Lodge,

all the officers relate their actions to the sun. We walk around

our Lodge in the same direction as the sun appears to move across

our earth. We travel towards the East, the place of light, after

being informed that the Master rules his Lodge as the sun does the

day. If you think and possibly are aware, that culture seemed to

develop in the East, there was always the suggestion that the

source of the sun had inspired this knowledge and culture.

Proof is readily available of the frequency of sun-worship as the

first form of contemplation of a deity. Man has always looked

upward for a "source" and the sun met the early criteria of

"supporter" of the life of the world. It is fairly natural that

this early god would be personified by the addition of a face so

that the god could be given more of the human attributes. Even

with our own concept of God, we find the degree of personification

relates to the stage of understanding of the race or individua l.

Do we then have a reminder of that ancient worship on our jewel

which is 'a reaching back' to give evidence, albeit erroneous, of

the great historical past of the Craft? Perhaps it is also a

repetition of the many death and rebirth mysteries and legends of

the past .... and the present.

Perhaps for us we should remember more the sun as being the symbol

of brightness, the opposer of evil. We know that we say in lodge

that the rays spread their benign influence and we also must have a

constant search for light. In fact the degrees seek 'light', 'more

light' and 'further light', and this is given by our three lesser

lights, one of which represents the sun as well as the Master. We

are told also that the sun is the glory of the Lord, and it governs

the day. There is another link in our lod ge with the sun and that

is a symbol designated as meaning something else, but the

astrological sign for the sun is a point within a circle.

While the sun is one clear symbol, we also find the moon with a

face on the jewel. Explain where it is. This symbol appears

elsewhere in our Lodge as one of the Lesser lights and is

represented by the Senior Warden. The moon and sun have many

similar characteristics in symbolism, but regularity and stability

have the approval of our teachings. These principles are desirable

in life both in and our of Lodge, as our Warden states in opening

and closing. It is natural that in the absence of the Master (th e

sun), the moon should rule in his place.

The symbol in the profane world has always indicated measurable

states, regularity and is strongly associated with the

death-rebirth mysteries that are continued as the principal theme

and lesson in Masonry.

Yet another symbol is found on the jewel in the form of a cluster

of seven stars. These are specifically referred to in the Canadian

teachings and are an important symbol in that they represent the

etherial mansion, veiled from human eyes but the York mason learns

only of the star-decked heavens. The significance of these stars

which adorn the ceiling of many Lodge rooms is very complex, in

that the stars and the number seven are almost constantly in

symbolism. The stars themselves, in clusters tend to b e

associated with order and destiny and so to some degree reinforce

the symbolism contained in that of the moon symbolism. When we

come to the seven we are almost overwhelmed with the many facts

associated with it. The number seven was said to be 'perfect'

because it contained the numbers 3 and 4 and was itself indivisible

and could not be created by multiplication. This gave it the name

of the virgin number. There were seven years to an apprentice

ship, there were seven planets known to man of the middl e ages,

and there are seven days in a week of which the 7th is the sabbath.

The days of the week are named after the seven gods of the Goths, a

seventh son has special powers, the Jews swore by the number seven,

there was a need for seven witnesses to agreements, and Solomon's

temple was said to have been built in seven years. Jericho was

encircled seven times by seven priests, and these were the seven

liberal arts and sciences know as the trivium a nd quadrivium which

were thought to contain the total sum of human knowledge. Seven

represents symbolically the combination of the Trinity and four

cardinal virtues, it is the number of the basic musical notes, of

colours and of the spheres. Seven is related to perfection, to

religious truth and also with knowledge. It is hard to find a more

astounding mass of facts associated with a number until we observe

that three and five are similar.

Within the Lodge we are reminded that it needs seven officers to

open the Lodge and those seven steps of the staircase reminding us

of the liberal arts and sciences. Jacob's ladder is usually shown

with seven rungs of which 3 are considered most exemplary for

masons. While then these seven small stars on the jewel are

insignificant they are repeated as a symbol at least three times

within our Lodges and give us much to think about.

Finally we can move on to the jewel of the Senior Warden, the

Level. We meet upon this sign, and we have all been raised from

the dead level to the living perpendicular. The symbol, we are

taught, shows the principle of equality and reminds us that we are

all descended from one stock and possess one nature and it thus

justifies our organization as a fraternity of equals. At Pompeii

it was discovered that a carving of a level with symbols of death

demonstrated an early belief in death as the great levelle r.

This, is our great experience. We are also told that we are

travelling on a level of time to an undiscovered country from which

no traveller returns. This also associates death with levels and

this is patterned after associations which exist outside the craft.

We observe again on this jewel, the sun, moon and seven stars and

as we move to the Junior Wardens Jewel will see them yet again.

The Junior Warden's Jewel is of course the plumb referred to in our

lectures as the symbol of rectitude and uprightness. A fairly

simple relationship to be sure. There is a link with this jewel

and Jacob's ladder stretching between heaven and earth and

stressing a morality which should be practised. We are instructed

in our steps to stand erect and charged to act upon this symbol as

we leave Lodge. This association is identical within and without

the Lodge.

 

We now move to a few of the simpler symbols worn as jewels by our

officers, and while some simply indicate their role they have a few

meanings on which we may think.

The doves of the deacons have long had two symbolic meanings, that

of a messenger and that of peace. The dove we see in Lodge has the

sprig of olive in its beak and is clearly a representative of Noah

who used it as a messenger of good tidings. The deacons jewel was,

in an earlier period, a representation of the God Hermes or Mercury

who was again the messenger of the ancient gods. In the Christian

faith the dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. This jewel then

is really a representation of the work to be performed but with

overtones of the early church and the Bible.

The stewards wear and carry the cornucopia which is a

representation of the horn of the goat which, in legend, suckled

the infant Jupiter. The horn symbolises strength and abundance and

suggests the supply of food as it is usually displayed full of

fruits. In our Lodges this is associated with those responsible

for satisfying the "inner man" after regular meetings are

concluded. As in the case of Amalthea the goat with the "visiting

Jupiter", the supply is supposed to be particularly abundant in the

pres ence of visitors.

The organist wears the lyre, a six stringed instrument associated

with Turpsichore, the Goddess of music and is the symbol of musical

accomplishment. It should constantly remind us of the contribution

that music can make to not only our Lodge but our total lives.

The chaplain wears what is perhaps the most important symbol within

our Lodge, for his jewel portrays the open volume of Sacred Law,

without which no Lodge can operate. This symbol expresses our

dedication to the God in whom we have a personal belief. It guides

us in the erection of our spiritual building and points out our

whole duty. It is the rule and guide to our faith and is kept in

our hearts between our meetings. The Bible on the jewel is open

upon a triangle which has additional symbolism for th e Christian

mason in that it represents the trinity. For all masons the

triangle can remind us of the three moral virtues, the principle

tenets of our profession, the knocks, the ruffians, the Great

Lights, the lesser lights, the three degrees, the three Grand

Masters, God and the Holy St.'s John and the steps, both our

individual ones and those upon which the Master presides. There

are so many references to the number three that it rivals the

number s even for sheer volume. Suffice it to say that the sym

bolism of this particular jewel is particularly meaningful to

masons, and each should have his own particular interpretation

without any suggestion that this should be imposed on others.

Again at this point you should observe the positive nature of the

symbols and the major influence they should have upon our thoughts.

The registrar has a simple scroll about his neck which signifies

the historical record of events. This is a reminder to each one of

us that our actions make an impression on the great record of

existence and we should strive to keep our book in correct balance.

The secretary wears the crossed quills which seem to be the

international symbol of a secretary. The saltire pattern, the bows

and the trailing ends have no recorded significance, but, we all

know this jewel indicates an onerous task performed by many sound

Brethren.

The treasurer has crossed keys rather than quills and these are, of

course, to the money chest of the Lodge. This is simply a role

indicator but these keys should remind us of "that excellent key -

a Freemason's tongue which should speak well of a Brother present

or absent. When this cannot be done, adopt the excellent virtue of

the Craft - SILENCE.

The secretary-treasurer has a combination of a crossed key and

quill but I will not go into which one is on top.

The jewel of the Director of Ceremonies is the crossed batons.

These are symbols of the batons of command which were presented on

the field of battle to an outstanding survivor. Possibly this is

why this office is held by Past Masters.

The Inner Guard and the Tyler both have swords, differing only in

that the tyler has one whereas the Inner Guard has two. These have

always been symbols of a protector and in particular have been

associated with the defence of a faith. The sword has the

reputation of warding off evil because in the inverted position it

forms a cross. In addition, within the Lodge, we know that the

Tyler's sword guards the Constitution and is a constant reminder to

guard our thoughts, words, and deeds, remembering the mas onic

virtues of silence and circumspection.

Having looked at the jewels we should also observe the collars from

which they are suspended, because these in some cases have symbols.

The principal symbols are the blazing star the entwined snakes and

knots. The blazing star pattern used, is usually that of the

"pentalpha", or five pointed star with intermediate flames. This

star is primarily the symbol of divine providence and can be found

in our mosaic pavement. The five points should remind us also of

other masonic "fives". The five orders of arch itecture, the five

points of fellowship, the five senses and the five who must be

present in order for a Lodge to be held. The star is also said to

represent the Morning Star which is yet another symbol of rebirth

which is so significant to each of us.

I should point out that there is a six pointed star or hexalpha

which is also known as the "Glory". This six pointed star is the

Seal of Solomon and also the Star of David. This star is also

represented on the carpet at times and there is distinct confusion

in the texts over which star is THE star to use. The primary

symbolic meaning of the six pointed star is the universe as an

entity.

Also to be found on the collar is this complex looping which shows

a serpent swallowing its tail, a common symbol of eternity and in

many cases associated with wisdom. The double entwined never

ending loops are similarly symbols of eternity but have the

additional meanings ascribed to them of vibrant energy and active

life. These symbols are worthy of our contemplation in relation to

the stability and teachings of the Craft.

We then hear the next symbol although modern methods sometimes deny

us the sound which adorns the apron, the seven chained tassel.

This is a fairly late addition and is thought to be more a

decorative copying of the ends of the original longer and centrally

tied ribbon or belt. The changing to tassels was slowly developed

and perhaps we could turn our thoughts again to the symbolism of

the number seven, already related for the Masters jewel. In

addition to the tassels we have the buttons which contain ou r

principal symbols again. Here the only addition is the compasses

which I leave to your personal investigation for our teaching

clearly suggests that they are for the craft.

Before closing we should end with a symbol of utility which would

make Freud turn in his grave, for the standard hook on an apron is

a snake. While we will accept 'wisdom', it is possibly simply a

decorated, very functional 'hook', with no great thought put into

it. We certainly do not all have one at any rate.

These are then the jewels of the Lodge, the collar and aprons worn

by our officers and perhaps they have shown a little more than you

have normally noticed. If you would look at the Jewels in the next

few Lodges you attend, you will find similarities and differences.

These will take on a new meaning because you have looked, and

possibly you may find more meaning in various aspects of your

personal masonry by contemplation of the new symbols you find or

the old ones that you know. I sincerely hope so.

   

La torre campanaria di Santa Maria del Fiore fu iniziata da Giotto nel 1334, portata avanti, dopo la sua morte, da Andrea Pisano ed ultimata nel 1359 da Francesco Talenti, creatore dei finestroni dei livelli alti. Estremamente ricca è la decorazione scultorea con 56 rilievi in due registri sovrapposti e con 16 statue di grandezza naturale nelle nicchie opera di maestri fiorentini del '300 e '400, fra cui Andrea Pisano, Donatello e Luca Della Robbia.

 

Sulla facciata prospiciente il Battistero, nel registro inferiore, sono raffigurate la Creazione dell' uomo e della donna, il primo lavoro umano ed i fondatori biblici di diverse attività creative umane (pastorizia, musica, metallurgia, viticoltura). Nel registro superiore sono i 7 pianeti, incominciando con Giove all' angolo nord. Sulle altre facciate, poi, sono illustrate, in basso, l' astrologia, l' edilizia, la medicina, la tessitura ed altre attività scientifiche e tecniche. Nel registro superiore ci sono: a sud, le virtù teologali e cardinali; ad est, le arti liberali del Trivium e Quadrivium; a nord, i 7 sacramenti. Le statue nelle nicchie rappresentano patriarchi, profeti e re d' Israele, e sibille pagane. Gli originali di tutte le opere di scultura sono al Museo dell' Opera.

 

Notizie storiche sulle campane

 

Nei documenti dell'Opera di S.Maria del Fiore e nell' opera del RICHA sulle chiese fiorentine troviamo:

  

1 - La Campana maggiore porta il nome di S. Reparata. Era stata fatta nel 1475. Essendosi rotta, fu rifusa da Antonio Petri nel 1705; è del peso di libbre 15860.

2 - La Campana detta della "Misericordia". Essendosi rotta, fu rifusa da Carlo Moreni nel Settembre 1830, ed è del peso di libbre 6414.

3 - La Campana detta l' "Apostolica". Fu fusa nell'aprile 1516 da Lodovico di Guglielmo ed è del peso di libbre 5000.

4 - La Campana detta la "Beona". Non si trova nè in che epoca fosse fusa nè da chi. Si calcola il peso in libbre 2760.

5 - Campana detta di Terza, che porta il nome di "Maria Anna". Come sopra. E' del peso di libbre 2152.

6 - Campana piccola. Fusa il 4 novembre 1513; è del peso di libbre 1400.

7 - Campana più piccola. Fusa nel Dicembre 1514; è del peso di libbre 1000.

 

Totale libbre 34586.

 

Negli anni 1956 - 57, a seguito della sostituzione dell'incastellatura di legno che le sosteneva con una nuova struttura metallica, e della contemporanea motorizzazione del movimenti delle campane, la Commissione a ciò preposta decise di escludere dal concerto le cinque campane più piccole, quattro delle quali furono depositate, inattive, nel vano dei finestroni del campanile di Giotto, mentre la terza, la cosiddetta "Apostolica" fu sistemata sul pavimento del piano della cella campanaria.

 

Si procedette cosi alla fusione di cinque nuove campane, a cura della ditta Prospero Barigozzi in sostituzione di quelle "messe a riposo" . Sono decorate con bassorilievi che illustrano episodi (e privilegi) mariani, per opera di noti scultori.

  

Allo stato attuale le campane in uso hanno le seguenti caratteristiche:

  

n. 1: il "Campanone" o "S. Reparata" (Kg. 5000 circa) con nota LA; diametro ml. 2.00;

n. 2: la "Misericordia" (Kg. 2500 circa) con nota DO; diametro ml. 1.500;

n. 3: l' "Apostolica" (Kg. 1800 circa) con nota RE; diametro ml. 1.45, bassorilievi di Mario Moschi;

n. 4: l' "Assunta" (Kg. 846) con nota MI; diametro ml. 1.27, bassorilievi di Bruno Innocenti;

n. 5: la "Mater Dei" (Kg. 481) con nota SOL; diametro ml. 1.16;

n. 6: l' "Annunziata" (Kg. 339) con nota LA; diametro ml. 0.95;

n. 7: l' "Immacolata" (Kg. 237) con nota SI; diametro ml. 0.75.

  

Ciascuna campana rifusa porta, sempre in bassorilievo, il proprio nome, lo stemma e il nome del Card. Arcivescovo Elia Dalla Costa che le consacrò, in Battistero, il 10 giugno 1956 ed inoltre l'emblema dell'Opera di S.Maria del Fiore e del Comune di Firenze.

 

Sulle ultime quattro sono incisi alcuni distici latini.

 

Nell'anno 2000 - 2001 l'impianto di elettrificazione e motorizzazione delle campane è stato completamente rinnovato, a cura dell'Opera di S. Maria del Fiore.

 

II modo antico di suonare le campane (che in quell'epoca erano quattro) è documentato nel XIII secolo dal codice "Mores et consuetudines Ecclesiae florentinae" (Biblioteca Riccardiana), e variava, come del resto si fa tutt'ora, secondo il grado delle celebrazioni:

 

1) "ut in dominicis" (come nelle domeniche)

2) "ut in ferialibus diebus et in festis III lectionum" (come nei giorni feriali e nelle feste con tre letture)

3) "ut in festis IX lectionum" (come nelle feste con nove letture)

4) "ut in summis solemnitatibus" (come nelle massime solennità)

  

Attualmente le campane vengono suonate (a "doppio") soltanto per le celebrazioni arcivescovili o capitolari; le campane singole segnalano ogni giorno l'Ave Maria (ore 7, mezzogiorno, ed alla sera) la penultima ora del giorno secondo il computo antico e canonico (le 23) che invita alla recita del "Credo" per i moribondi e la prima ora del giorno liturgico seguente (l' "un' ora")che ricorda l'uso di recitare il "Requiem" per i defunti. Inoltre segnala la sospensione dal lavoro per la pausa del pasto (11.30) e la morte di un capo-guardia della Misericordia.

 

Per tradizione si suonano doppi minori anche per alcune circostanze devozionali più significative come il Rosario solenne dei mesi di maggio e ottobre, la "Via Crucis" dei venerdì di Quaresima, la Novena di Natale e per altre eventuali occasioni che il Capitolo dovrà autorizzare. Non si suona per le singole Messe quotidiane o per altre funzioni devozionali.

  

(Fonte: duomodifirenze.it)

Queen's House is a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635. It was built near the now demolished Greenwich Palace, a few miles downriver from the City of London and is now in the London borough of Greenwich. It presently forms a central focus of what is now the Old Royal Naval College with a grand vista leading to the River Thames. The Queen's House architect, Inigo Jones, was commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark in 1616 and again to finish the house in 1635 by Queen Henrietta Maria. The Queen's House was commissioned by both Anne and Henrietta as a place to display artworks they had accumulated and commissioned; this includes a ceiling of the Great Hall that features a work by Orazio Gentileschi titled Allegory of Peace and the Arts.

 

Queen's House is one of the most important buildings in British architectural history, due to it being the first consciously classical building to have been constructed in the country. It was Jones's first major commission after returning from his 1613–1615 grand tour[1] of Roman, Renaissance, and Palladian architecture in Italy. Some earlier English buildings, such as Longleat and Burghley House, had made borrowings from the classical style, but the structure of these buildings was not informed by an understanding of classical precedents. Queen's House would have appeared revolutionary during this period. Although it diverges from the mathematical constraints of Palladio, Jones is often credited with the introduction of Palladianism with the construction of the Queen's House. Jones' unique architecture of the Queen's House also includes features like the Tulip Stairs, an intricate wrought iron staircase that holds itself up, and the Great Hall, a perfect cube.

 

After its brief use as a home for Royalty, the Queen's House was renovated into the Royal Hospital for Seamen. Today the building is both a Grade I listed building and a scheduled monument; A status that includes the 115-foot-wide (35 m) axial vista to the River Thames. The house is now part of the National Maritime Museum and is used to display parts of its substantial collection of maritime paintings and portraits.

 

Early history

Queen's House is located in Greenwich, London. It was built as an adjunct to the Tudor Palace of Greenwich, previously known before its redevelopment by Henry VII, as the Palace of Placentia; Which was a rambling, red-brick, building in a vernacular style. This would have presented a dramatic contrast of appearance to the newer, white-painted House. The original building was intended as a pavilion with a bridge over the London-Dover road, running between high walls through the park of the palace. Construction of the house began in 1616, but work on the house stopped in April 1618 when Anne became ill and died the following year. Work restarted when the house was given to the queen consort, Henrietta Maria, in 1629 by King Charles I. The house was structurally complete by 1635.

 

However, the house's original use was short, no more than seven years; The English Civil War began in 1642 and swept away the court culture from which it sprang. Although some of the house's interiors survive, including three ceilings and some wall decorations, none of the interior remains in its original state. The process of dismantling the house began as early as 1662, when masons removed a niche and term figures and a chimneypiece.

 

Artworks that had been commissioned by Charles I for the house, now reside elsewhere; These include a ceiling panel by Orazio Gentileschi, Allegory of Peace and the Arts, which is now installed at Marlborough House, London, a large Finding of Moses, now on loan from a private collection to the National Gallery, London, and a matching Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, still in the Royal Collection.

 

The Queen's House, though it was scarcely being used, provided the distant focal centre for Sir Christopher Wren's Greenwich Hospital, with a logic and grandeur that has seemed inevitable to architectural historians but in fact depended on Mary II's insistence that the vista to the water from the Queen's House not be impaired.

 

Architecture

Built by Inigo Jones in the seventeenth century, the Queen's House is England's first classical building. Inigo Jones was commissioned by Anne of Denmark in 1616 to build the unique house. At her death in 1619, the house was unfinished. Jones completed the house for Queen Henrietta Maria in 1635. The Queen's House is unique in style and characteristics compared to other English buildings of the time. Jones created a first-floor central bridge that joined the two halves of the building. Inigo Jones was heavily influenced by Italian Renaissance architecture and the Palladian style, created by Andrea Palladio. Jones applied the characteristics of harmony, detail, and proportion to the commission. Rather than being in the traditional, red-brick Tudor style like the then existing palace, the house is white and is known for its elegant proportions. Jones felt compelled to reflect political circumstances of the time through his use of his Orders, reflected in his "Roman Sketchbook" notes. In early designs of the Queen's house, Jones experimented with using the Corinthian Order in public, which at the time was used as court architecture and was viewed as "masculine and unaffected".

 

Two preliminary drawings have been associated with Anne of Denmark's commission. The first plan includes a rectangular villa with a circular staircase adjacent to a vaulted square hall with six pilasters along the exterior. The second plan is composed of an H-shaped building with a columnar bay and a balcony, which fits two of the elevations of the Queen's House. The completed Queen's House, finished under the request of Queen Henrietta Maria, reflects a public restraint mentioned in Jones' "Roman Sketchbook". Between 1632 and 1635 a central loggia was added to the south front and Columns were limited to this area. The columns were switched from Corinthian to Ionic to reflect the strictures of Serlio, being made for matrons.

 

Inigo Jones' design is famous for two of its aspects: the Great Hall and the Tulip Staircase. The Great Hall is the centerpiece of the Queen's House and holds a first-floor gallery that overlooks geometric-styled black and white marble flooring. The Great Hall is recognizable and innovative for its architecture; The shape of this hall is perfect cube, measuring 40 ft in each direction. Much like Jones' inspiration for the rest of the Queen's House, Jones used the rules of proportion created by Palladio.

 

The Tulip Staircase was an unusual feature during this period and the first of its kind. Made of ornate wrought iron, it is Britain's first geometric and unsupported staircase. Each tread is cantilevered from the wall and supported by the step below, a design invented by the mason, Nicholas Stone. Each step is interlocked along the bottom of the riser. Jones found inspiration for the staircase, and the glass lantern above, from Palladio's Carita Monastery, where he noted that the staircases with a void in the center "succeed very well because they can have light from above". Jones hired Nicholas Stone to lay the black and white flooring which mirrored the design of the ceiling.

 

Patron

Anne of Denmark, the wife of James I of England, was an important patron of the arts. Anne commissioned her frequent collaborator, Inigo Jones, to refurbish the Queen's House in Greenwich. Although the Queen's House was not completed before her death in 1619, Anne was able to use the palace at Greenwich as a personal gallery before her death. Both James I and Anne had private galleries and fashioned them in similar ways. Jemma Field describes the spaces as a place of political significance; "All objects and furnishings were appraised as signs of Stuart wealth, merit, and honour". Anne of Denmark's project may have been influenced by her knowledge of garden buildings and hunting lodges in Denmark, and her brother Christian IV of Denmark sent two Danish stonemasons to work for her at Greenwich for nine months.

 

Queen Henrietta Maria

Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, son of Anne and James, inherited the rights to Greenwich Park in 1629. She commissioned Inigo Jones to return and finish the Queen's House between approximately 1629 and 1638. As an important patron for contemporary artists, Henrietta acquired and commissioned many works of art for the Queen's House. Henrietta used the palace as a "House of Delights" and filled the home with spectacular pieces of art, including the Great Ceiling.

 

Allegory of Peace and the Arts (Ceiling by Orazio Gentileschi)

Orazio Gentileschi, a favorite at the court of Charles I, was commissioned by Queen Henrietta Maria to decorate her "House of Delights". By Gentileschi's death in 1639, the Queen's House contained about half of Gentileschi's English works, including the ceiling of the Great Hall from 1635 to 1638. The central work of this hall features the Allegory of Peace and the Arts, a central tondo surrounded by eight other canvases. The ceiling creates a visual celebration of the reign of King Charles I and his encouragement of peace and the liberal arts. Gentileschi Illuminates the taste and patronage of Henrietta Marie by embodying the power of women throughout the ceiling, all but one of the twenty-six figures are women.

 

The composition of the ceiling includes a large central tondo with four rectangular canvases on each side of the ceiling and four smaller tondos on the corners. The central tondo, the personification of Peace is depicted floating on a cloud and is surrounded by the figures representing the Liberal Arts, Victory, and Fortune. The surrounding panels depict the nine Muses, and the personifications of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Music. The image of Peace, in the central tondo, is seated on a cloud and holding an olive branch in one hand and a staff in the other, embodying the message that Peace is a product of good government and rule because of the encouragement of knowledge, learning, creativity while remaining within the realm of Reason. Peace, the only male figure, is positioned in the center of the panel portraying him as the most important and the central quality by allowing the others to be around him. The other twelve females are the personifications of the trivium(Grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and quadrivium(arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry) that make up the Liberal Arts.

 

In 1708, Gentileschi's series of nine paintings were removed, given by Queen Anne to Sarah Churchhill. They were installed in Marlborough House, St James, where they can still be viewed today.

 

For the first time since 1639, when Gentileschi worked on the ceiling, another artist has recently worked on the ceiling, Turner Prize winner, Richard Wright. In 2016, Wright and his team of five assistants worked together to fill the empty spaces of the ceiling left behind by the Gentileschi panels. The team used a series of scaffolded flat beds to support them while they transferred a sketch to the ceiling, applied size to the outline, and then covered it with gold leaf. Wright took influence from the geometric patterning on the floor, the intricate details of the tulip staircase, and created a ceiling that reflects the Queen's House's geometry, beauty, and intracity.

 

Construction of the Greenwich Hospital

Although the house survived as an official building, being used for the lying-in-state of Commonwealth Generals-at-Sea Richard Dean (1653) and Robert Blake (1657), the main palace was progressively demolished between 1660 and 1690. Between 1696 and 1751, to the master-plan of Sir Christopher Wren, the palace was replaced by the Royal Hospital for Seamen (now referred to as the Old Royal Naval College). Due to the positioning of Queen's House, and Queen Mary II's request that it retain its view of the river, Wren's Hospital architectural design was composed of two matching pairs of courts that were separated by a grand 'visto' the exact width of the house(115 ft).

 

Wren's first plan, which was blocking the view to the Thames, became known to history as "Christopher Wren's faux pas". The whole ensemble at Greenwich forms an architectural vista that stretches from the Thames to Greenwich Park, and is one of the principal features that in 1997 led UNESCO to inscribe 'Maritime Greenwich' as a World Heritage Site.

 

19th-century additions

From 1806 the house was used as the center of the Royal Hospital School for the sons of seamen. This change in use necessitated new accommodations; Wings and a flanking pair were added to east and west and connected to the house by colonnades (designed by London Docks architect Daniel Asher Alexander). In 1933, the school moved to Holbrook, Suffolk and it's Greenwich buildings, including the house, were converted and restored; They became the new National Maritime Museum (NMM), created by Act of Parliament in 1934 and opened in 1937.

 

Following construction of the cut-and-cover tunnel between Greenwich and Maze Hill stations, the grounds immediately to the north of the house were reinstated in the late 1870s. The tunnel comprised the continuation of the London and Greenwich Railway and opened in 1878.

 

Recent years

In 2012, the grounds to the south of the Queen's House were used to house a stadium for the equestrian events of the Olympic Games. The grounds were used to stage the modern pentathlon, while the Queen's House in particular was used as a VIP center for the games.

 

Work to prepare the Queen's House involved some internal re-modelling and work on the lead roof to prepare it for security and camera installations.[citation needed] The house underwent a 14-month restoration beginning in 2015, and reopened on 11 October 2016. The house had previously been restored between 1986 and 1999, with contemporary insertions that modernised the building. The modernization created controversial due to the new ceiling in the main hall created by artist Richard Wright, a Turner prize winner. In some quarters, it provoked some debate: an editorial in The Burlington Magazine, November 1995, alluded to "the recent transformation of the Queen's House into a theme-park interior of fake furniture and fireplaces, tatty modern plaster casts and clip-on chandeliers".

 

Current use

The house is now primarily used to display the museum's substantial collection of marine paintings and portraits of the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, and for other public and private events. It is normally open to the public daily, free of charge, as well as other museum galleries and the seventeenth-century Royal Observatory, Greenwich, which is also part of the National Maritime Museum.

 

In Autumn 2022, a 1768 painting by the artist Tilly Kettle went on permanent display. The painting depicts Sir Samuel Cornish, 1st Baronet, Richard Kempenfelt and Thomas Parry on HMS Norfolk and was purchased by the National Maritime Museum, with assistance from the Society for Nautical Research.

El 25 de agosto de 1648 moría en Roma San José de Calasanz, que había nacido en la localidad oscense de Peralta de la Sal en 1557. Su vocación sacerdotal se concreta al ver tantos niños pobres para los que el acceso a la formación era imposible. Sin apenas ayudas, funda la primera escuela gratuita en Roma en 1597. A partir de ahí, su labor se extiende por todo el mundo hasta hoy (escolapios).

 

Esta preocupación por educar y formar a jóvenes sin recursos está presente en muchos miembros de la Iglesia a lo largo de los siglos y sólo citaré tres más de sus hitos "recientes": San Juan Bosco (Salesianos), San Marcelino Champagnat (maristas) y San Pedro Poveda (Institución Teresiana).

 

Ya en el siglo IV , San Gregorio de Nisa había escrito en su "Vida de Moisés": "Muchos aportan a la Iglesia de Dios el don de su cultura profana". La cultura se concibe, pues, como un don de Dios. En el s. IX, San Cirilo y San Metodio expanden el cristianismo por el oriente de Europa y, para que los eslavos puedan leer en su propia lengua, inventan un alfabeto base del cirílico. En el otro extremo de Europa, los monjes irlandeses fijan por escrito historia, tradiciones y leyendas. La primera Crónica que conocemos sobre nuestra propia historia, la hace Idacio, obispo de Chaves (s.IV-V), ...

 

Entre los siglos XII-XIII Estudios Generales primero y Universidades después nacen al amparo de catedrales y monasterios. Sobre la base del 'trivium' y el 'quadrivium' se forma en el saber universal no sólo a clérigos y nobles, sino a mucha gente del pueblo llano.

 

El corazón del los franciscanos es la pobreza y San Francisco tenía la aprobación directa de su Regla por el propio papa Inocencio III. Su rama femenina, las 'clarisas', se regirá por la que el cardenal Hugolino elabora especialmente para ellas en 1216. Aún teniendo en cuenta que son religiosas contemplativas, el cardenal no duda en incluir este texto: "Y si hubiera algunas jóvenes, o incluso mayores, dotadas de buen ingenio y humildes, la abadesa, si le pareciera, haga que se les enseñen letras, asignándoseles una maestra idónea y discreta".

 

Y es que el pensamiento jurídico medieval distinguía cuatro clases de leyes, siendo la primera la 'ley eterna'. El hombre se halla en "la obligación [...] de procurar incrementar sus conocimientos" mediante el estudio de los "fenómenos" para acercarse a la comprensión del "plan de Dios" (Luis Suárez)

 

Muy próximo a nosotros en el tiempo, el hoy San Josemaría Escrivá, escribe en 'Camino": "Al que pueda ser sabio, no le perdonamos que no lo sea" (332) o "Una hora de estudio, para un apóstol moderno, es una hora de oración" (335)

 

Creo bueno, cuando tanto se critica con o sin razón, reconocer la labor de tantos que, como San José de Calasanz, comprendieron la importancia de la educación y actuaron en consecuencia. No en vano, la Iglesia enseña que las obras de misericordia que, por amor, debe hacer un cristiano, afectan no sólo a las necesidades materiales, sino espirituales. La primera de estas últimas es, precisamente, "enseñar al que no sabe". Y una cosa es lo que enseña la Iglesia y otra -quede sobre todo al juicio de su conciencia- lo que hace cada cristiano, jerarca o no.

 

FOTO.- Tras la expulsión de los jesuitas, en 1873 es cedido el colegio a los Escolapios para continuar su función docente que continúa al día de hoy. En esta clave del claustro figura su escudo con las iniciales M y A, primera y última letra del nombre María. La grieta es consecuencia del terremoto de Lisboa de 1755.

 

FRASES DE SAN JOSÉ DE CALASANZ

 

"Si desde su tierna edad son imbuidos diligentemente los niños en la piedad y en las letras, hay que esperar, sin lugar a dudas, un feliz curso de toda su vida"

 

"La buena educación de los jóvenes es, en verdad, el ministerio más digno, el más noble, el de mayor mérito, el más beneficioso, el más útil, el más necesario, el más natural, el más razonable, el más grato, el más atractivo y el más glorioso"