In the winter of 2015, as I was preparing to defend my PhD dissertation, I was struck by something one of my committee members, Serge Guilbaut, had repeated several times in some of our meetings. Firmly believing that meaning in the arts during the Renaissance was determined by the political and religious bias or ambition that motivated the artists, architects and patrons, he would ask: “What’s in it for them?” My research considered important and influential figures in the sixteenth-century Veneto—a period and region seriously shaken by wars and the conflicts of the Reformation—so the question seemed a valid one. On the other hand, the literature and treatises left behind by many of the protagonists of my thesis contained what seemed to me a sincere and profound consideration not for their own subjective aims, but for the good of mankind. Was I simply naïve?
After my successful defence, I had more time to ruminate over the problem and I was struck by the moral similarity between some of the main characters of my thesis and the Brotherhood of Freemasonry. A famous quote by Francis Yates was imbedded in my mind:
“Where is there such a combination as this of religious toleration, emotional linkage with the medieval past, emphasis on good works for others, and imaginative attachment for the religion and symbolism of the Egyptians? The only answer to this question that I can think of is—in Freemasonry.”
The link between Freemasonry and the protagonists of my dissertation had already occurred to me, and so I decided to search for incontrovertible connections. The first link I discovered was between Freemasonry and Andrea Palladio. Palladio is hailed in Albert G. Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences (1873) as the individual who launched speculative Freemasonry. The result struck me as more than coincidence. As I delved deeper I came across a document written by one Abbé Lefranc in 1791, which claimed that Freemasonry began in Palladio’s city of Vicenza in 1546. The link now seemed providential. Soon the Masonic symbolism concealed in Palladio’s architecture and its painted walls revealed itself in exciting and unexpected ways, resulting in a book that is much more compelling than I first envisioned. Gradually, I came to understand that the Brotherhood of Freemasonry emerged because of the need for change, inspired by the Reformation. Readers interested in Freemasonry and the art and architecture of the sixteenth century in Italy should find something of value here. Mostly, I hope, they will appreciate how, like Luther, those associated with the origins of Freemasonry demanded we think of evolving with our hearts and souls, and not our minds, since at its heart Freemasonry seems to be about the evolution of kindness.