Page 10 - The Early History of The Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. UGLE

10 The Early History - Lodge of the Nine Muses

ball-room dancers. All the members of the famous quintette of the period sooner
or later joined the Lodge. They were, W. Cramer {made in the Hall Committee by
dispensation on 24th April, 1777), Luigi Borghi, C. F. Abel, F. Giardini and J. C. F. Bach,
a son of the famous composer. It was with this quintette that Mozart played as a child
prodigy when he visited London. There is a painting in the National Portrait Gallery
of three artist friends,
J. B. Cipriani, the artist designer, F. Bartolozzi, engraver to the King, and A. Carlini,
the sculptor whose statue of George III still stands in the portico of Burlington
House. All three were Royal Academicians and members of the Lodge of the Nine
Muses. So were J. Zoffany R.A. and others. Besides talent, the Lodge attracted several
well known philanthropists, as might be expected with Ruspini leading it. On the
death of the founding Senior Warden, Raphael Franco, his son, also a member of the
Lodge, bequeathed to Grand Lodge a legacy of £50. Viscount Dudley and Ward,
said by Burke’s Peerage to be “Distinguished by the purest and most munificent
benevolence of character”; Lord MacDonald, who helped to finance the rebuilding
of the Freemasons’ Tavern in Great Queen Street; Philip Arconati Visconti, the Baron
Scockart, an eccentric who became the Mayor of Brussels; and Baron A. Starck, a
leading German Freemason, a student of the Kabbala and instigator of the higher
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clerical degrees in the Rite of Strict Observance He later wrote of the simple
beauties of English Craft Masonry.
The Lodge, together with nine of its members, was one of the first to obtain
the ‘Hall Medal’ for its contribution to the building of the first Freemasons’ Hall in
London.
Ruspini founded the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls in 1788, and Lord
MacDonald became the first Governing Member (Chairman) of the General
Committee. Viscount Dudley and Ward assumed the Treasurership when Ruspini
retired from that post, to be followed by yet another member of the Lodge of the
Nine Muses, C. Carpenter. John Hull was one of the first Masters of the Court, and
James Bottomley, perhaps Ruspini’s greatest masonic friend whom he followed into
many masonic offices, was an original member of the Governing Committee with
him.

9 AQC. 41. “J. A. Starck: and his Rite of Spiritual Masonry.” by B. Telepneff.