This work, published by subscription but now generally available, is a major expansion and re-focusing of Curl's celebrated work of 1991, The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry. Its 356 pages are profusely illustrated and the author has taken the opportunity to add additional colour to the previous work. The illustrations are drawn widely and many are new to publication. The book considers masonic origins along with the hermetic and mystic tradition and moves on to consider evidence of masonic influences prior to the creation of organized Grand Lodges. The temples of the Old Testament are considered, both as prototypes of masonic architecture and to set context. The creation of distinctive masonic architecture both for lodges and in the wider world is reviewed and the influence of neo-classicism and Egypt on it are explored, and the use of masonic principles in garden architecture is explored in depth.

The whole book well illustrates the difficulties that face those daring to study freemasonry academically; the author's frustration at the reaction of others to masonic research is a sentiment with which this reviewer sympathizes. The notion persists that freemasonry is unworthy or impossible to study academically; so does the assumption that any who do so must be covert sympathizers or members, routinely coupled with the presumption that either status is a disqualification for scholarly study. There is a tendency either to downplay masonic influence on the period, or conversely to see it lurking behind every act of enlightenment or use of symbolism. For the archaeologist to identify unexplained finds as ‘of ritual significance’ can proverbially be the refuge of the scoundrel; but for the masonic scholar it is a starting point, to be tested in context to prove (or fail to prove) masonic involvement.

This book is essential reading for all those interested in the long eighteenth century or in architecture more generally. It is also essential reading for those interested in esoterics in the broader sense. This ‘age of reason’ parallels our own age of science in having a less rational ‘new age’ approach to philosophy and meaning running in parallel to its scientific and theoretical rigour. The intellectual mind games of aristocrats became blurred and enhanced by genuinely held beliefs in the potency of symbols, and the ability to draw forgotten wisdom from the partially understood cultures of the ancient world and in particular the ‘gothic’ origins of Britain. Based on this, the book makes a cogent case for widespread symbolism in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century architecture and gardens. The link with freemasonry, as distinct from intellectual games, religion, hermeticism or other fraternities, is less clearly made. Freemasonry often appears clearly to be the vector or motive for a piece of architecture, but close examination provides no conclusive evidence; like T S Eliot's cat Macavity, it is simply ‘not there’. Curl explores this paradox in a passage on the Mozart opera Magic Flute.

The absence of reference to the Free Gardeners, a mainly Scottish fraternity with a ritual based around Adam, Noah and Solomon, is puzzling; and a greater analysis of the Renaissance garden would provide comfort where the alleged Masonic symbolism could have religious connotation as well. There is a lengthy section devoted to the origins of modern ‘speculative’ freemasonry. This will be of general interest for newcomers to this contested and much considered field, and practitioners will doubtless find suitable backing for their preferred viewpoint while decrying alternatives; but it feels somewhat out of place as it is, inevitably, inconclusive and relates only tangentially to the subject in hand. It does nonetheless open the reader's mind to the complexities involved in studying freemasonry, where even the origin of the concept is so contested, and has become so intermingled with popular history and belief, that it will never now be established.

Curl identifies the freemasonry of the eighteenth century very much with liberal and tolerant philosophy. He is at pains to draw distinctions between the freemasonry of continental Europe and that of England and Scotland. This is essential if the reader is not to be confused by the often contradictory information available on the subject, with English freemasonry remaining centred on the core three ‘craft’ degrees while French freemasonry, in particular, developed into long, cumulative systems of ritual, drama and symbolism.

Professor Andrew Prescott (now of King's College London), who provides the foreword to the book, has elsewhere called it magisterial. That it is, but its real legacy will be the arguing of its contents in higher courts. The proponents of freemasonry's contribution to built material culture have made their case, and it must now be tested more widely. It is to be hoped that this book will encourage this question in the broadest readership possible. Throughout this work the author's voice and viewpoint are heard clearly and in print, as in person, he invites us to the debate.