The Magpie Mason is an obscure journalist in the Craft who writes, with occasional flashes of superficial cleverness, about Freemasonry’s current events and history; literature and art; philosophy and pipe smoking. He is the Worshipful Master of The American Lodge of Research in New York City; is a Past Master of New Jersey Lodge of Masonic Research and Education 1786; and also is at labor in Virginia’s Civil War Lodge of Research 1865. He is a past president of the Masonic Society as well.
Just in time for Garibaldi Lodge’s 160th anniversary year, a pipe maker, that I unhappily cannot identify, seems to have produced a briar bearing the handsome likeness of Giuseppe Garibaldi. This photo shows a page in the October issue of Arbiter magazine. It is being circulated on social media by Al PasciĆ to promote its Ovalina shape, two of which are seen resting on the page. Maybe this Garibaldi briar is made by that venerable pipe-maker, but I cannot find any info on the web about it.
Anyway, the actual anniversary of the lodge’s constitution passed on June 11, but the brethren will meet tomorrow night at eight o’clock in the Corinthian Room for its regular communication. (It’s impossible to choose a favorite lodge in the Tenth Manhattan District, but I’m drawn to Garibaldi because of the French Rite EA° it famously confers, in Italian, to the delight of hundreds of visiting Masons.)
Magpie file photo
From the 150th anniversary.
Garibaldi 542 was the first lodge under the Grand Lodge of New York to work in the Italian language. There was confusion in the Craft at the beginning, as the lodge was trilingual—Italian, French, and English—so that the DDGM had to direct the Worshipful Master to keep the lodge’s proceedings in Italian, per the Dispensation granted by Grand Lodge.
The lodge’s namesake, of course, is the Italian freedom-fighter and Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy. Did you know Giuseppe Garibaldi resided in Staten Island for a time? Read more about Garibaldi 542’s history here.
TOMMASO CRUDELI (1702-1745) Florence, Italy FIRST MARTYR OF UNIVERSAL FREEMASONRY Presented by the President of HSTCI of America MWGM KENNETH S. WYVILL Jr of GL of MD MMXV
I wish I could have copyedited that.
Born on this date* in 1702 was Bro. Tommaso Crudeli.
That’s a new name to me, having learned of him only last weekend. Taking in the many sights inside the Boston Masonic Building, home to the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, on Saturday, I was drawn to this bust. The plaque on its pedestal is not the most informative inscription, but I shot a photo and looked up Bro. Crudeli later. There’s an amazing story.
Tommaso Baldasarre Crudeli (December 21, 1702-March 27, 1745) was a Tuscan free-thinker who was imprisoned by the Roman Inquisition in Florence. He was a poet, lawyer, champion of free thought, and is remembered as the First Martyr of Universal Freemasonry.... Tommaso was the seventh [Crudeli generation] to graduate from the University of Pisa [both canon and civil law, 1726]. His mentor was Bernardo Tanucci (Premier of Naples and Sicily Kingdom) during the preparation of studies and university years; in Pisa he had strong relationships with teachers and colleagues for cultural affinities Lucretian and above the nascent Enlightenment.
Tommaso moved to Venice at the family of the Counts Contarini and then he returned to Florence as professor of Italian for English Colony. For his lively intellect and his boldness, Tommaso was brought into the English Lodge, first Masonic Lodge in Italy and dependant from Grand Lodge of England, in which he was initiated on May 5, 1735. He became secretary, but also a scapegoat for a strong conflict between the Vatican and English Freemasonry, who began in Florence at the end of the long dynasty of the Medici trying to establish the Lorraine, titled dynastically, to change the political destiny of the Grand Duchy.
He was arrested for suspicion of heresy, or worse, to be the bearer of heresies, and was left in prison in total darkness and without air for three months. He was interrogated for days on “francmassonery,” but he did not cooperate and he would not sign the papers falsely noted his guilt so he was incarcerated again for another four months in inhumane conditions.
Questioned again about the aims of Freemasonry in Florence, members’ names, and Masonic rituals, he would not comply. He was sent back to jail even though his body was tried and he was vomiting blood. Meanwhile his father, Atto Crudeli, pleading the liberty for his child, sadly died of a broken heart for sorrow. Before Christmas, his brother Antonio clumsily attempted to free Tommaso, with a daring plan that ended before it was started. The Inquisitor interpreted the plan as proof of guilt and was convinced even more the need to pursue the prisoner. After another four months in prison, still in the darkness with sealed windows for fear of escape, he was questioned and charged with sins against religion whose list was irrelevant but that eventually concluded “and other serious facts known only to us.”
Subsequently, the inquisitors carried him, near death, to the prison at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence where he spent three months. In August 1740, in a church parade in black, they did ask him to recant, accepting his gasp as explicit consent. After the sentence came the partial grace that provided the compulsory residence in his home until the end of his life with a series of religious obligations that Tommaso never fulfilled.
CORRECTION: Apparently, I saw a copy of the bust at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial during a visit in November 2022.
Meanwhile all of Florence was in turmoil and especially the Governor, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Justice, and brothers of the lodge. Even the Grand Lodge of England mobilized, giving the King these facts, among others, that touched British interests in the dynastic succession in Europe. The Grand Duke of Tuscany (also a Mason) asked for a report from Tommaso. Because he had some bed rest, but was still sick and dying, Tommaso was able to dictate a detailed report which was why Francis Stephen of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa of Austria in 1742 closed the Inquisition Tribunal forever (next to the Basilica of Santa Croce), and after five years had it demolished.
Meanwhile Tommaso died in his bed because of the after-effects of imprisonment on March 27, 1745. He did have the satisfaction of seeing the Inquisition abolished by the secular power, the first in the Catholic world. The “Antica Condanna” which in fact was the first conviction by the Papal Bull of April 1738, was heard for many decades in which the writings and poems of Tommaso Crudeli were scattered, as it was altered many times [and] on the basis of which the Grand Duke did close the Inquisition Tribunal.
A brief video from 2008 when the Grand Lodge of New York memorialized Bro. Tommaso Crudeli.
*They used another calendar back then, so just play along.
Strong links between Italy’s secretive freemasons and the mafia have been exposed by police raids, with 193 crime bosses found to be members of lodges in Calabria and Sicily.
The investigation has confirmed long-standing accusations by magistrates and mob turncoats that freemason lodges in southern Italy are often venues for secret deals with corrupt judges, politicians and business owners. The mafia’s enthusiastic participation in freemasonry “has led some to believe that the two have become one and the same,” according to a report this month from an anti-mafia parliamentary commission. Masons were “acquiescent” and “tolerant” of the takeover, it added. The raids were ordered after the heads of Italy’s four main freemasonry orders refused to hand over their membership lists. “It was impossible to get them to collaborate,” said Davide Mattiello, a member of the commission. “Mobsters are joining the masons to meet people who hold power. We need to know how aware of this the masons are.” The commission’s call for masons to make their secret membership lists public was contested by Stefano Bisi, grand master of the Grande Oriente d’Italia, the biggest order in southern Italy. “The order is ready to defend its sacrosanct right to existence and to maintain the privacy of its members,” he said. The synergy is reputedly most intense in two towns in western Sicily, Castelvetrano and Trapani, where masons have allegedly helped the mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro to stay on the run for 24 years. Mob-masonry ties are also strong in Calabria, where the local mafia sends members of its top tier committee to do business at lodge meetings, the commission said. In Locri, a Calabrian town notorious for its ties to organized crime, 18 out of 75 members of a local lodge were linked to the mafia. The report said that the mafia felt at home in the masonry because the organizations shared a passion for keeping secrets and holding ritual ceremonies. National elections are to be held in March and after that a new anti-mafia parliamentary commission will be appointed. “We only checked in Sicily and Calabria. I hope the next commission will check lodges throughout Italy, because mob infiltration is likely to be a national problem,” said Mr. Mattiello.
Posts
