While in Poland, the movement was somewhat demonised and surrounded with the air of a disturbing secret, in the West, Freemasonry was much more a part of the public life from its very outset. Thus, countries to the west of Poland were a lot more aware of the positive influence and impact that the movement had on world history. We owe numerous great works and institutions to Masonic thought, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Great French Encyclopaedia, as well as the idea of public museums and libraries. It is also this line of thinking that birthed the idea of respect for nature, as well as a concept of the garden as man’s natural environment, and a new concept of education. And how about Poland?
The exhibition at the National Museum titled 'Masoneria. Pro publico bono' reveals the true face of the Freemasons’ movement, with its battle for equality and fraternity between humans and the ideals of progress and wisdom. At the same time, it depicts the significant role Freemasonry played in Polish culture, without which the latter seems much poorer, at times perhaps mysterious, but also prone to appropriation.
What do we owe to the Masons in Poland? In other words, what were the ties of such prominent figures as Stanisław August Poniatowski – Poland’s last king –, Adam Mickiewicz, and Janusz Korczak with the movement? Here are some of the less obvious relations between Freemasonry and our national culture, with its extraordinary achievements.
Architecture – 'geometry at work'
Symbolism based on architecture and construction laid the basis of all Masonic iconography. The trowel, the bevel, the compass and Solomon’s Shrine are among the most recognised symbols of Freemasonry and they refer to its roots – the medieval builders’ guilds (architects, masons, sculptors). The legend of masonry appears as early as 1723, in James Anderson’s The Constitutions of the Free-Masons. In it, the movement is associated with the art of architecture, and, in a wider perspective, with the liberal art of geometry. This is the reason why treatises of the Freemasonry (those of Palladio and Vitruvius) served not only as a base and source of inspiration for the work of architects, but also became an object for contemplation for the Freemasons. Some lodges were also equipped with copies of them.
Polish Freemasons’ Classicism
The Freemasons’ cult of reason and admiration for the laws of geometry found its expression, as well as fulfillment, in the Italian architecture of the late Renaissance, with the works of Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). The English Freemasons played a significant role in popularising his cult. It was thanks to the members of the Great Lodge of London that Palladio’s style became dominant in England, and later also in the United States.
Polish propagators of the style were architects connected to the king Stanisław August Poniatowski, and among them most notably Dominik Merlini. His designs for the White House and the Palace on the Water in Łazienki Park, as well as the Królikarnia pavillion were straightforward allusions to Palladio’s Villa Rotonda, which was raised in 1582.
The Masonic architects that formed the Polish 18th century classicist current were Szymon Bogumił Zug (responsible for the Evangelist-Augsburg Church in Warsaw), the architect of the Vilnius cathedral Wawrzyniec Gucewicz and Jakub Kubicki, who authored the project of the Shrine of Highest Providence in Warsaw. Marcello Bacciarelli, Antoni Smuglewicz and Zygmunt Vogel, painters and printmakers, were also part of the movement.
Masonian Łazienki

King Stanisław August Poniatowski’s membership in the Freemasons found expression in the construction of the Łazienki Royal Park. The very first Polish treatise on English-style parks was written due to the adaptation of the terrain on commission for the monarch. It was written by Fryderyk August Moszyński, a Freemason, alchemist, and advisor to the king. His work is saturated with references to the Masonic symbolism and ideology – but the actual construction of the site did not run in exact agreement with his advice.
The building now considered to be the most Masonic is the White House designed by Dominik Merlini. His famous Dining Room, with its decorative painting by Jan Bogumił Plersch, was also filled with the movement’s symbols. From the figure of Venus Anadyomene – interpreted as the Egyptian Isis – through painted elements such as a beehive (symbolising a Mason’s work on himself), to the five-pointed stars surrounding the goddess Ceres. Such symbols were also present in the decorations of Solomon’s Shrine, designed by Marcello Bacciarelli for the Palace on Water. Unfortunately, these paintings were destroyed by Germans during the Second World War.
Dobrzyca
The palace in Dobrzyca is a special place for Freemasons. Created by a member, August Gorzeński, a general and adjutant of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, as well as a deputy of the Four-Year Sejm, the palace is also surrounded by an urban and park layout, as well as special interior design. The building itself was built on the plane of the letter L (evocative of the Masonic trowel) on top of a four-column Tuscan portice with the Latin quote from Horatio, "Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes angulus ridet" (meaning, this place on earth is dearer to me than anything), while the Latin angulus apart from designating a place on earth can also mean a trowel.
But Dobrzyca was still more than that – on top of architecture, it was also a social project. Gorzeński intended to transform Dobrzyca into a Bononia – a land of goods and happiness, reigned over by a protective ruler in a just way, in accordance with the principles of the Enlightment.
A few years ago, there emerged the idea of creating a Museum of the Enlightment and Freemasonry in the Dobrzyca palace. The idea was lost, and instead the Museum of Gentry and Patriotic Tradition was founded there.
What does the garden have to do with a lodge?
Gardens became a place for social meetings, much like the lodges. Both spaces shared the role of a place to escape to and reflect. But for the Freemasons themselves, the similiarities ran deeper. God himself, as the creator of the Garden of Eden, and the Great Architect, supplied the reason.
Next to architecture, gardens, were one of the favourite sources of inspiration. They were considered a symbolic space, which also allowed an individual to develop good and love within, as well as the need for freedom. Such an imagining of harmony between man and nature can be traced in the paintings of Jan Piotr Norblin, and the drawings of Zygmunt Vogel.
Helena Radziwiłłowa nee Przeździecka also realised such an ideal of a garden in Arcadia in Nieborów, and so did Izabella Czartoryska nee Fleming, in the village of Puławy. The Freemason and architect Szymon Bogumił Zug was active in Arcadia, followed by the Italian-born Henryk Ittar, whose vision was somewhat closer to Romanticism. The rebuilding of the Pułway garden which started in 1791 also took on a sentimental English style.
Gardens built in the Masonic spirit were also found in the Łazienki park in the Mokotów district of Warsaw, as well as Jabłonna and Młociny.
Freemasons’ Portraits
This is the description used in the history of art to describe portraits of Freemasons with Masonic regalia. A special portrait of this kind in Polish painting was painted by Marcello Bacciarelli, depicting the king Stanisław August Poniatowski with an hourglass. Both the painter and the model were Freemasons (of the strictly observed Templar rite) and at times the portrait is interpreted as possessing an encrypted message.