Page 141 - An account of the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235. 1777 to 2012UGLE

Lodge of the Nine Muses 141

Russia and the West Indies and others. After these comes “A New & Correct List of
all the Regular Lodges, according to the Dates of their Constitutions, by Order of
the Grand Master”, 496 in all including a few blanks, and occupying thirty-six pages.
The whole is not printed from type, but engraved, and is impressed therefore on
one side of the page only.
These lists were issued by authority of the Grand Lodge yearly during most
of the eighteenth century; some of the earlier ones are enlivened with crude
engravings of the signs of the taverns where Lodges met:
The 1796 (1776) list was the last to be issued in this form.
53
In April 1902 the W.M., Brao Carl von Buch, “presented to the Lodge an
Album which he hoped might be considered suitable for portraits of Past Masters
of the Lodge”. Unfortunately, or fortunately, no attempt has been made to
carry out the donor’s intention, and the Album contains nothing but four loose
unnamed photographs. If Bro. Carl von Buch had remained in the Lodge it might
have been otherwise, but he ceased to be a member in 1907, and though he
rejoined in March 1911 he died six weeks later.
The Lodge also possesses a large folio volume containing engravings, among
many others, of the well-known series of statues of Apollo and the Nine Muses
by Francesco Maria Nocchieri, now in the Galleries of the Vatican, and once
the property of Queen Christina of Sweden. This was given to the Lodge by
Bro. Dr Reid, W.M. 1929, at the end of his year of office. Bro. Reid at the same
time gave to each member of the Lodge a case containing reduced photographic
reproductions of the engravings of the ten statues.
The book, which measures 20½ by 15 inches, is richly bound in pink velvet,
embroidered with silk and tinsel, all now much faded. The title page reads:
“RACCOLTA/DI STATUE ANTICHE E MODERNE/DATA IN LVCE/
SOTTO I GLORIOSI AUSPICJ/DELLA SANTITA DI N.S./ PAPA CLEMENTI
XI/DA/Domenico de Rossi/ILLVSTRATA ....
In Roma nella Stamperia alla Pace con Privilegio del Sommo Pont. e licenzade
Superiori l’ anno MDCCIV.
Of the business books of the Lodge the four Minute-Books, the first dating
from 1814, have already been described in Chapter Three.

53 The date in the original history is printed as 1796 but it must be a misprint for the correct
date was 1776.