Encyclopedia Masonica

After years of argument and discussion historians of the great art of printing tend to agree that the honor of inventing the printing press goes to the Dutchman Laurens Coster, who was born about 1370 A.D. and died in 1440 A.D. Johann Gutenberg (1397-1468) will continue to be the most famous of the earliest printers because of his edition of the Bible, a single copy of which has sold for almost one million dollars.

But it was Aldus Manutius (1495 1597) and his family in Venice who established the first great publishing house, and who made printing a world force for kings and popes to reckon with. Without printing there would have been no Renaissance, and without a Renaissance there would have been neither Humanism now the Reformation. Immediately this new power appeared, the Vatican moved in to chain it up, lest the common people in Europe should learn a number of inconvenient facts. How the printers themselves circumvented the Vatican, and a number of kings beside, is explained in Vol. II of Books and Their Makers During the Middle Ages, by George Haven Putnam, a companion piece to the same author's work on the Roman censorship of books (that censorship continues to be enforced wherever the Vatican has the power to enforce it, even in America); G. P. Putnam's Sons; New York; 1897.

To a Mason who remembers what the gild system meant to Masonry, the most interesting chapter in Putnam's history is the one on the printer gilds; it shows how the printers and publishers themselves, and oftentimes against the State as well as against the Church, defended and maintained and expanded their epoch-making art, until it was at last beyond and above control by any Church or State in the world.

(NOTE. It was not printing that Coster invented but the use of movable type; printing of books from engraved wood blocks, each block being as large as a page, had been done centuries before. In 1908 Sir Aurel Stein discovered in Buddhist eaves in the Gobi Desert near Funhwang a number of very old printed books. "One large black printed roll which bore a date corresponding to A.D. 868 was the oldest specimen of a printed book so far known...." Altogether Sir Aurel discovered in one series of eaves preserved by the drynessl over 9,000 printed books and ms. rolls. See page 47 in The Gobi Desert, by Mildred Cable with Francesca French; the Macmillan Company; New York; 1944).

The Encyclopedia Masonica exists to preserve the wealth of information that has been generated over the centuries by numerous Masonic authors. As Freemasonry is now Speculative and not Operative, the work of a Mason is now conducted in the quarries of symbolism, literature, history and scholasticism. Freemasonry encourages intellectual exploration and academic achievement in its members and many Masons over the years have taken up this calling. The result has been that an incredible amount of philosophy, symbolic speculation and academic insights have been created. However, as Freemasonry teaches, human knowledge is frail and fragile. It is easily lost in the turnings of the ages and unforeseen catastrophes can result in great setbacks to human knowledge.

For too long these great works have sat on forgotten shelves, gathering dust and concealing the light that could be shed on the darkness of our ignorance. The Encyclopedia Masonica has been created to act as an ark, sailing through time, to ensure that future generations of Freemasons have access to the same knowledge that inspired the Brethren that came before them. It will contain the works of such Masonic Luminaries as Albert G. Mackey, Manly Palmer Hall, G.S.M. Ward, Albert Pike and many others. The Encyclopedia Masonica is a living work and the volunteers of Universal Co-Masonry will continue to labor until the most comprehensive Masonic reference work the world has ever seen has been created. The Encyclopedia Masonica is open to any who wish to use it and will remain open so that the treasures contained within may increase the wealth of all those who seek its wisdom.