Freemasonry And Enlightenment Architecture Symbols And Influences James Stevens Curl by James Stevens Curl 9781905286454, 1905286457 instant download after payment.

This superbly illustrated study of Freemasonry's influence on Western culture, especially in the 18th and early-19th centuries, has been recognised as one of the most original and important contributions towards a greater understanding of the Enlightenment published in recent times. Always a vivid and entertaining writer, Curl, éminence grise in the international network of historians of the Craft, and as usual wearing his learning lightly, astonishes and delights us with his stimulating explorations of themes concerning music, literature, philosophy, art, architecture, and artefacts, all expertly woven through the main narrative. Curl is a master of his subject and of an ebullient literary style, so the results of his copious researches are always presented in a highly accessible and witty manner, free from obfuscation or tediousness, further illuminated by his unerring choice of wonderful illustrative matter. Curl began his studies of Freemasonry in the 1970s, leading to publications that were an immensely useful, and sane, introduction to a field often fraught with speculative sensationalism. In this book, which originally came out in 2011, he hugely expanded his investigations, showing how aspects of Masonic ideas have permeated the design of buildings, parks, gardens, and cemeteries, as well as much else. His Glossary outlines some of the complex themes and iconographies of the Craft (notably the symbolic and moral significance of the Architect's and Mason's instruments and tools), and the extensive Bibliography contains an enormous amount of material to stimulate further research, not least into the curious phenomenon of antipathy towards Freemasonry by authoritarian closed minds and totalitarian bigots.
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