The Roesler Franz Family and the Initiatic Path

By Francesco Roesler Franz

Ettore Roesler Franz è stato una figura unica e di spicco tra i pittori romani ottocenteschi. Oltre a essere stato a conoscenza dei segreti degli iniziati, la fitta rete di amicizie e conoscenze che aveva con i maggiori esponenti culturali e artistici europei ha reso la sua pittura innovativa e densa di rimandi simbolici. Un artista completo e sensibile, dotato di una grande forza d'animo e una bontà che tanti ricordano. A collegarlo ad artisti come Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, William Blake e Picasso è la massoneria, che come un filo attraversa cinquecento anni di storia dell'arte. E a raccontarci qui la sua intensa storia che si intreccia con quella dell'arte e di tanti uomini di cultura e arte è Francesco Roesler Franz, che con questo saggio ci lascia una testimonianza indimenticabile dell'artista mentre coglie l'occasione per riscoprire le origini della propria famiglia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Release date: Feb 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9791220392570

Book preview

Preface

In the writings dedicated to him, the figure of Ettore Roesler Franz has always aroused great interest, not only for his talent as an artist but also for the strength that distinguished him as a man and the halo of mystery that surrounds him, making him magnetic and timeless.

In this new essay, Francesco Roesler Franz goes deeper into his research on his great-uncle and, on the basis of new documentation, dissects the bond that Ettore Roesler Franz had with Great Britain and all the leading figures who populated it, starting with Joseph Severn and John Ruskin. And even more important in delineating the figure of the artist is the relationship with his brothers: Francesco, a coal magnate, Alessandro, vice-consul and later consul of England in Rome, and Adolfo, banker, consul, commissioner and insurer.

The four of them were Freemasons, and their ancestors Vincent and Franz Rösler, who came to Rome from Prague, helped found Italian Freemasonry in the second half of the 18th century. They were protagonists in many pivotal events both as freemasons and also patriots of the nascent Kingdom of Italy.

The Roesler Franz Family and the Initiatic Way is a narrative full of fascination and mystery, which, word after word, transports us into an almost enchanted world, mixing reality with the wonder and imagination of art. In each of his descriptions, Francesco Roesler Franz succeeds in enchanting us, in awakening within us that wonder that sometimes slumbers, and in restoring to our lives a fascination that seeps out of the works of art he examines and strikes us deeply, making all the chords of our being vibrate.

On the initiatory alchemical path of Prague’s Royal Route, the House of the Golden Apple recalls the myth of the three Hesperid sisters (Hesperia, Aegle and Heredithides), daughters of Atlas and Hesperides. For alchemists, the apples in the garden of the Hesperides, which is guarded by the dragon Ladon, symbolise control of the Great Work and enable the philosopher’s stone to be obtained. The dragon, Ladon, had a hundred heads and spoke several languages: an allegory of the many philosophers who sought treasures in the garden. The dragon’s name links him to Latona, which in Greek means invisible hidden being, reminding us of the occult character of the great alchemical work, which few can achieve, as we admire the author’s linguistic, narrative and descriptive skills.

In this book, Francesco Roesler Franz takes us on a journey of discovery, where the merest anecdote or the smallest detail takes on unparalleled weight and value. Obviously, accompanying Ettore Roesler Franz’s story is esotericism, the true soul of the paintings in Roma Sparita. In fact, the artist celebrated Masonic and Risorgimento Rome, at the same time condemning the temporal power of the Papal State. Yet there are many levels of interpretation of his works, and Francesco Roesler Franz has succeeded in explaining this to us by opening our eyes to infinite worlds that we never thought could exist.

The essay itself exudes symbolism and mystery and it is quite difficult to describe the nature of the work, which skilfully mixes biography, history, art and esotericism.

In Masonic symbolism, the all-seeing eye at the centre of the triangle is identified with the Macrocosm: For the symbolism to be completely correct, this eye should be a ‘frontal’ or ‘central’ eye, that is, a third eye, and it is indeed that third eye that sees everything in the perfect simultaneity of the eternal present.

With his theory of colour, Goethe brought about a real revolution in the knowledge that revolved around the eye: as in Masonic symbolism, in Goethe’s theory the eye assumed a fundamental role, because if it were not similar to the phenomenon observed, no relationship could be established between subject and object and therefore between macrocosm and microcosm; the eye is an organ that sees by relating light and shade, light and dark that cannot mix [...].

In this journey through time and space, in the constantly changing Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries, we witness the evolution of history intertwined with that of the Roesler Franz family. The contacts that Ettore Roesler Franz had with Freemasonry and with the greatest artists and intellectuals of the time allowed him to fully discover Great Britain, to wander around Europe and to learn all the concepts and techniques that are fundamental for an artist, but also to nourish himself with the huge range of emotions that then makes his art reverberate. Art is in fact the thread that binds everything together and leads Ettore Roesler Franz on an initiatory journey in search of something greater than ourselves and existence itself, and which can only be discovered through a long and complex journey.

Esoteric preface

by Luca Rocconi

Writing a preface is an arduous task, tantamount to a declaration of the intentions of the text that follows it, presenting readers with the origins of literary creation, the methods and goals set by the author, all in a few clear, light and unambiguous lines. This preface (from the Latin praefatio ‘to preface, to say before’) is not written by the author but is written by a third person, who has been asked for an esoteric preface, given the nature and content of the pages that follow. Out of my love for esotericism, therefore, I will briefly explain the meaning of this term: it derives from the Greek language, from ἐσώτερος (esóteros, inner), and represents the ability to go beyond outward appearances, to access the core of inner truth. The main task of the esotericist is to ask the why of things and not to stop at the who, how, when and where. The spiritual disciplines, Kabbalah, alchemy, hermeticism, magic and astrolog y, are esoteric, and these disciplines are examined in the book by my good friend Francesco Roesler Franz. Writing an esoteric preface is indeed a difficult task, but to be able to present the characteristics of this work to the readers through this brief ‘inner premise’ is also a great honour. Reading this book, one learns about the history of the Roesler Franz family from its Bohemian origins, and one is also transported to the cultural circles and courts of Europe from the 16th to the 18th century. The author brings to life the historical context of the alchemical circles at the Prague court of Rudolph II, where the most interesting minds of Renaissance Europe met: the great English magician and alchemist John Dee, the famous German medical alchemist Michael Meier, the Kabbalah rabbi Judah Low and the planetary astronomers-astrologers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Giordano Bruno also stayed at the Prague court for six months.

As family events unfolded, interconnected with the historical events of the time, the links of the Roesler Franz family with members of Rosicrucian circles, Freemasonry, Carbonry, the Dante Society and the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood deepened. The fundamental stages and symbolic instruments of all these initiatory societies are retraced, with art as the main channel of transmission. A true initiatory path is outlined, starting with the young Ettore’s cultural formation and continuing through his friendships, encounters, numerous trips abroad and above all the role that membership of Freemasonry played in his life.

The initiatory way is part of the title of this work and serves to clarify the aims of the book and to indicate the correct interpretation of the text; it refers to the techniques and rites of initiation. The term initiation comes from the late Latin initiare and means to initiate into the mysteries, only later becoming a generic verb relating to any beginning. In turn, this Latin verb derives from i¬ni¬tium (in+i¬re), to go forth or to enter. Initiate is the verbum of true alchemists, indicating the passage from one state of matter to another, the evolution of the spirit through rites of passage.

The life of the protagonist, Ettore Roesler Franz, is examined as if it were an initiatory journey in a continuous search for truth, in the Greek sense of the term. Truth, in Italian, derives from the Latin veritas. This Latin word comes from the Balkan and Slavic areas and means faith, or trust, referring therefore to a concept to be accepted passively, by faith, relying on an institution or on religious dogmas. It is not veritas that an initiate seeks, but Aletheia (ἀλήθεια), the Greek term for truth, which has a different structure from the Latin expression veritas. Etymologically, the prefix alpha (α), which has a privative function, precedes the root leth (λήθ), which means forgetting ; the name of the river Lethe, which in Greek mytholog y is the river of oblivion, also derives from the same etymological root. Alètheia therefore indicates something that is no longer hidden, that has not been forgotten, it is truth understood in the sense of revelation and unveiling , it is the process of knowledge that takes place through the removal of the veils of Maya of Vedic memory.

In ancient Roman society Janus/Ianus was the god of initiations, the guardian of all forms of passage and change, the protector of all that has an end and a new beginning. The symbolism of Janus is represented by the door (ianua) and the keys. Janus was considered the inventor of the keys, and for this reason he was the patron god of the craftsmen’s guilds, the Collegia Fabrorum, which in mediaeval times would evolve into the craftsmen’s guilds or guilds of free masons (free-masons), until the birth of speculative Freemasonry in the 18th century. With a patient gaze we can observe a golden thread that weaves together many pearls of knowledge to be passed on, like a necklace that starts from an archaic era and stretches into the present day.

The same path of knowledge is revealed by highlighting the Radix Davidis, the lineage of David, the brotherhood so extolled by Abbot Gioacchino da Fiore, born from the lineage of Judah, son of Jacob, who later moved to Europe. This brotherhood, which later became known as ‘Fidelis in Amore’ (Faithful in Love), of which Dante Alighieri is said to be a follower, later merged into the brotherhood called ‘Giordanisti’, led by the great philosopher Giordano Bruno from Nola. According to Frances Yates, an expert on Renaissance hermeticism, after Bruno’s death, the ideas of the Jordanists may have given the impetus for the formation of the Rosicrucian movement, which is still shrouded in many mysteries and interesting theories.

There are so many threads that weave together to form the fabric of this book, I do not pretend to summarize all the plots in this introduction, and even less do I want to deprive the reader of the pleasure of reading , pleasure that will be expressed to the fullest when you reach the conclusions, the arrival in the harbour after having sailed different seas and subtle currents. by Luca Rocconi of Roma Esoterica

Background

Giacomo Boni, one of the most important Italian archaeologists of all time, discovered many sites thanks to intuition and premonitions. When I heard about this I was very moved, thinking back to the fact that all my research on Ettore Roesler Franz started from premonitions I had in 2007 about the Non-Catholic cemetery at the Pyramid, from which I kept away until December 2017, when, pressed by an incredulous person, I was forced to pull myself together and go and check. As soon as I entered I went to pay homage to the two tombs side by side: that of the poet John Keats and that of the painter, and British consul in Rome, Joseph Severn. Of the latter I saw what was written on the back of the tombstone, the names of those who had contributed the funds to erect it.

Back home I chose the name of H. W. Longfellow. I learned from the internet that he was one of the first American men of letters to become world famous, an important abolitionist, and that he founded the Dante Society to promote the Divine Comedy in the United States. Later, I delved into the figure of Joseph Severn and what he did in the British Consulate.

From this new research I had the idea to write this essay with the aim of outlining , with the documents acquired and those already reported in the Romantic Biography of Ettore Roesler Franz, written by me and published by Intra Moenia, a more complete vision of the figure of Ettore Roesler Franz and his brothers Francesco, Alessandro and Adolfo. As the research progressed, I went back to the generations preceding Ettore’s, up to Franz and Vincent Rösler, who came to Rome in the middle of the 18th century.

Boat on the Tiber near Ponte Milvio; watercolour by Ettore Roesler Franz

Part I

The origins of the family

Seneca’s tomb at the fourth mile of the Appian Way; watercolour by Ettore Roesler Franz

Origins of the Roesler Franz family

The Rösler family (whose surname later became Roesler and then Roesler Franz) arrived in Rome around the middle of the 18th century, when two brothers, Franz and Vincent, came to Rome from Frydlant in Bohemia.

Between 1740 and 1747, Europe was shaken by the war of succession to the throne of the Habsburg empire of Maria Theresa of Austria. It was a terrible war in which all the major European powers took part on opposing sides. The Habsburg Empire was allied with Great Britain, Russia, Hanover, Saxony, Hesse and Holland, while the opposing side included France, Spain, Prussia, the Kingdoms of Naples, Bavaria, and Saxony, the Swedish Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Republic of Genoa. Surely the fortified town of Frydlant, then part of the Habsburg Empire (now in the Czech Republic on the border with Germany and Poland) must have been the scene of constant warfare. My ancestors, Franz and Vincent, who may have been soldiers, may have decided in 1747 to come to Rome, a much quieter city than their homeland.

Frydlant Castle

Frydlant was for long periods at the centre of clashes and disputes between Catholics and Protestants. During the Counter-Reformation, from 1558 to 1620, it was owned by the House of Redern, opponents of the Habsburgs, which is why their land was confiscated during the Thirty Years’ War by Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg , who granted it to Duke Albrecht von Wallenstein. The latter, a skilful strategist and great organiser, formed and commanded an efficient mercenary army, with which he achieved many victories and defeated the Protestant states, enemies of the Empire, in numerous battles. Considered ambitious and scheming , the duke was eventually assassinated in 1634 at the behest of Emperor Ferdinand II himself.

Frydlant is located in a valley in the hills north of Liberec. The castle, which stands on a wooded rocky peak at the edge of the town overlooking the Smeda River, is said to have been Franz Kafka’s inspiration for his novel Das Schloss. The building blends architectural elements from different eras: the medieval walls and cylindrical tower blend with the rest of the Renaissance and Neo-Gothic buildings. Originally a 13th-century fortress, it was completely transformed by Wallenstein, who built a new Renaissance-style building in place of the fortified village within the first town wall, the interior of which houses the portrait gallery, weapons collections and document collection.

Frydlant Castle

During the Thirty Years’ War, Wallenstein, in the service of Ferdinand of

Habsburg , defeated the Protestants on 8 November 1620. After this battle Ferdinand entered Prague in triumph to regain control of the Czech territories, confiscating the Protestant lands. Thirty thousand Protestant families fled as the Counter-Reformation gained momentum. Some of the confiscated property passed to commanders of imperial troops, including Wallenstein. Wallenstein’s military successes sowed the seeds of his own downfall; they appeared too bright in the eyes of the emperor. In fact, for several decades, much of northern Bohemia was run by Wallenstein as an independent country. As his lands included mines and other sources of wealth, Wallenstein became even richer and more powerful and was appointed supreme commander of the imperial forces in 1625. In 1632 he defeated King Gustavus Adolphus II of Sweden at the Battle of Lutzen. The Habsburg Emperor felt increasingly threatened by the general’s independence, and when Wallenstein asked his officers to swear allegiance to him on 22 February 1634 he was murdered. Subsequent – repeated

– Swedish invasions of Bohemia and Moravia created enormous devastation, from which Prague was not immune, until the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, when the Peace of Westphalia was negotiated.

Frydlant Castle

The distance between Frydlant and Prague is just over a hundred kilometres. During the Renaissance, Rudolph of Habsburg made Prague one of the finest, richest and most renowned capitals on the European continent. He summoned European intellectuals, alchemists and artists and commissioned more than four thousand works for his collections, which unfortunately were lost over the following centuries.

Prague and Rudolph II

Prague is considered to be the capital of magic, a subject which is as much a part of its history as its most famous monuments, whose origins often straddle the line between history and legend, the real and the supernatural. It is no coincidence that the city is one of the apices of the White Magic Triangle, along with Lyon and Turin. In 1583, Austrian Emperor Rudolf II responded to the Turkish threat to Vienna by moving the imperial capital to Prague. Rudolph was an introverted, fragile and melancholic person, prone to bouts of depression and probably mentally ill; he had a lion as a pet, and employed the English alchemists Edward Kelley and John Dee at his court, making Prague the largest centre for the study of astronomy and astrolog y in Europe. Yet Rudolf overcame sectarian differences between Catholics and Protestants and, in July 1609, signed the ‘Letter of Majesty’ which allowed total religious freedom to the people of Bohemia.

This level of tolerance was unprecedented in the rest of Europe. But his behaviour could not be tolerated by the Habsburg family ; in 1611 he was forced to abdicate. In the royal gardens, on the southern slope of the Deer Moat, a heated aviary was established, which housed many rare birds, including parrots, and was considered to be the most beautiful in all of Europe. On the same slope, Rodolfo had his grandfather Ferdinand I’s wooden menagerie replaced with a larger stone one. It was called the Lion’s Court, but it also contained tigers, lynxes, bears and foxes. The lion, an ancient symbol of power and nobility, was one of the oldest emblems of the Bohemian kingdom and as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire he was often associated with the king of the jungle. A pet lion, which Rudolf played with as a cub, was occasionally left to roam the palace workshops and studies. Rudolf died in 1612, three days after his beloved Leo, both of whom had similar horoscopes; Tycho Brahe, his official astrologer, had read in the stars that they would die within days of each other. Emperor Rudolf II was a man with a mania for collecting , who rejected everything earthly and immersed himself in the arcane, the obscure and the supernatural. The hermit emperor preferred the company of animals to that of people. One of the most valuable pieces in his collection was a precious agate bowl, found by the Crusaders in 1204 in Constantinople and thought to be the Holy Grail. Rodolfo was obsessed with alchemy. In Renaissance Europe, astrolog y, astronomy, medicine, and alchemy were fused into a proto-science that Rudolph fully embraced in his quest for a conceptual framework that would help him understand the universe. It is likely that Rudolf ’s main alchemical laboratories were in the castle. Thanks to Rudolf II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Dominus Mundi, King of Bohemia, Hungary, Germany and the Romans, there was an incredible and unparalleled meeting of minds in Prague at the end of the European Renaissance. The seat of his power was Prague Castle, at the centre of Bohemia, at the centre of Europe, at the centre of the known world.

Francis Bacon, pioneer of the modern scientific method, wrote in his essays that

‘knowledge is power’. But it was not political influence that Rudolf sought; he was already the most powerful man in Christendom. Rather, he desired power over nature and over life and death. Like Marlowe’s Faust, he was ready to risk his soul in the all-encompassing quest to understand the deepest secrets of nature and the enigma of existence. Inspired, moreover, like Hamlet, by the new humanist knowledge,

Rudolph questioned the old certainties by seeing both sides of any coin and thus, ironically, found it difficult to decide and act.

More than any other contemporary monarch, Rudolph exemplified the Renaissance drive to gain power through knowledge in both its positive and negative aspects. Ready to believe almost anything , however fanciful and absurd, he was obsessed with the alchemists’ dream of discovering the Philosopher’s Stone that would supposedly turn metals into gold and prolong life into eternity. He was fascinated by the promises of astrologers to understand and predict the influence of celestial bodies on the character of men and the affairs of the world. He was captivated by those who practised natural magic and were pushing back the frontiers of science by claiming to be able to manipulate the occult forces of nature. And when alchemy, astrolog y and magic failed, he was pushed further and further into using the black arts of witchcraft and necromancy to achieve his ends.

As Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Rudolph was responsible for maintaining the power of the Catholic Church. But by tolerating Protestants and Jews and encouraging freedom of thought and expression, he was unable to avoid a head-on clash with both the Vatican and the forces of the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, who wanted total control over thought and knowledge. Anyone who crossed the boundaries set by the Vatican was accused of having links with the devil. In the eyes of the Inquisition, the unrestrained pursuit of truth did not lead to enlightenment but to damnation. Nevertheless, Rudolf dared to defy the dictates of the

Church and thus gained an important and interesting place in the cultural history of the Renaissance. His generous patronage of alchemists, physicians and astrologers throughout Europe indirectly laid the foundations for the scientific revolution of the 17th century. In his mystical aspirations, his obsession with occult knowledge and his incessant search for truth, one can find the first glimmers of modern philosophy and science.

The writer David Gans, who lived in the Jewish quarter at the time, was enthusiastic about the charms of this land, which he described as the Holy Land: Prague, a grandiose, magnificent and populous city, is the capital of Bohemia. It is situated exactly in its centre. And as for Bohemia, what an abundance of people, of towns without fortifications, of villages, of large and splendid cities, of palaces, of castles, which surpass each other in their height! This land is rich in God-given fortunes: wheat, wine and meat in such quantities that even the neighbouring countries derive a livelihood from it. Moreover, it is a land of rivers, great and small, and many are the waterways: fish, pastures and forests are abundant. It is a land in which the stones are iron and the mountains brass.

In his lifetime, Rudolf was known as the Maecenas of Bohemia, after the trusted advisor to the Roman Emperor Augustus, who became synonymous with great patronage. Making no distinction between the world of arts and ideas and everyday life, Rudolf invited painters, sculptors and enlightened artists from all over the continent to his magical theatre. From the mid-16th century into the new century, they flocked to Prague and made it the cultural capital of Europe. The emperor had close relations with the Jewish community in Prague. The Habsburgs had been accommodating to the Jews for a long time because of their skill and intellectual knowledge. Jews had been coming to Prague since the 10th century and were generally well tolerated in the Middle Ages. Prague’s Jewish quarter, with its extensive cemetery, was located on the right bank of the Moldova, near the Old Town. It was sometimes called the Prague Ghetto, as it was separated from the rest of the city. During the reign of Rudolf, about ten thousand Jews lived in Prague, the largest community in the diaspora. Not only was the city called the Mother of Israel, but in those years it saw the great flowering of Ashkenazi culture that became known as the Golden Age of Jewish history. There was also a print shop where the first book in the Hebrew language was printed in 1512. The city’s rabbis also had the reputation of being cultured travellers, having studied in Jewish schools in Germany, Poland, Italy and Eg ypt. The large Jewish community in Prague, in comparison with those in other European capitals, enjoyed considerable privileges and its citizens included some of the wealthiest people in the city.

For further input into his studies of the occult and Kabbalah, Rudolf summoned the Chief Rabbi of Bohemia, Judah Low, a friend of the