The Secret History of Freemasonry

242 FROM THE ART OF BUILDING TO THE ART OF THINKING

Rabelais. It was Ficino's contribution to develop a syncretic philosophy

inspired by the systems of Zoroaster, Hermes, Orpheus, Pythagoras,

Plato, the Kabbalah, and Christian philosophy. He wrote:

God appeared in eternity, creating or rather luminously emanating

from the center of the circumference, which radiates outward from

being and good to nothingness and evil. As men, who are intelli-

gences, finite lights within the abode of time and movement, we

aspire toward that motionless light for which we are its mobile

emanantions. Death, by delivering us from the body, draws us

close to it and its other angelic lights, pure spirits whose bliss is

found in rest. Death is therefore a pleasure and it is death that the

philospher dives into each day when leaving the body to soar on

the wings of the soul.^9

In 1512, Florence would also witness the creation of an original
organization, the Company of the Trowel. This society appears to have
emerged from the operative masonry that preceded it, although it left
behind its material purpose to embrace its mystical intent. Consisting of
scholars and prominent figures of the civil society of the time, it
employed symbols such as the trowel, the hammer, and the chisel and
chose for its patron saint the same one who watched over the Scottish
masons: Saint Andrew.^10 We know the great influence the Italian acad-
emies had over the English and Scottish Freemason lodges.
Undoubtedly the Platonic Academy and the Company of the Trowel,
whose members were the same as those of the academies, exerted a sim-
ilar influence.
Another important society that likely had an effect on masonry,
however indirect, is the Guild of Mages. It was founded in 1510 by
Henri Cornelius Agrippa when he arrived in London and was modeled
on the organization he had already created in France. The Guild of
Mages was a secret society consisting of masters of alchemy and magic-
Its members, who used personal identification signs and passwords,
founded corresponding organizations—chapelies—in other European
countries for the purpose of studying the "forbidden" sciences. If we
give credence to a manuscript by Michael Meir (1568-1622), conserved