Page 15 - Amo Amass A-muse is some of the fruit of a lifetimes love of Freemasonry - the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235

ARCONATi

RETHREN,

BI always try to tell you something new that I have found out during my researches
into the history of our Lodge. This time I would like to tell about a great Eccentric who
was Initiated on February 13th 1783. You will find his name at the bottom of page 177
of our history.
“De ARCONATI, Marquis, Viscount of Milan.”

I puzzled over this entry. A Marquis and a Viscount! Eventually I found that he was the
Marquis Paul ARCONATI VISCONTI, of Milan.
The noble family of Arconati Visconti had for generations been celebrated
as protectors of the Arts. Paul’s father had possessed the sketch book and papers of
Leonardo de Vinci, which he gave to the Ambrosias Museum. He had married the
younger daughter of the last Baron SCOCKART, Count TIRIMONT, one of the three
richest and most influential noblemen in the Netherlands, whose principle country
estate was at GAASBEEK and his town house in Brussels was the famous Hotel de Croy
in the Palais Royale. By a family agreement, Paul became the heir to the Belgian estates
of the late Count ‘Tirimont.
Paul started life as a Captain in the Hungarian Hussars, fighting for Austria in the
Seven Years War. Afterwards, he was sent to travel in Germany, Russia, Poland and
Scandinavia, and this determined his future ambitions. Frustrated by his military calling,
he resigned and continued to travel, studying the ‘fine arts’ and customs of the countries
through which he passed, thereby giving him a reputation for originality. It was during
this period that he came to England and was Initiated in our Lodge.
Taking up residence at Gaasbeek, he began to take an interest in local affairs. He was a
liberal in thought but his eccentricity led the people to believe that he was a revolutionary
and a Jacobin. An Italian, raised in Austria and a Frenchman by force of circumstances,
Arconati had no use for the political functions of government, yet, after the revolutionary
Coup d’Etat in 1797, Citizen Marquis Arconati was elected the representative of the
Department of DYLE, in which he behaved like a ‘paternal magistrate’.