ABSTRACT
On 14 December 1784 Mozart was initiated into the degree of Apprentice at the lodge 'Beneficence' in Vienna. That he wrote a number of works for specifically Masonic occasions and that The Magic Flute is a Masonic allegory, is, of course, well known. In 1738 Pope Clement XII issued an edict banning the Freemasons. The ban was not at first observed in Austria, where Francis was himself a member of the Order; but after his death the Freemasons were persecuted by his widow, Maria Theresa, who was a devout Catholic. Joseph II, who succeeded her, protected them. During the second half of the century a number of different branches of Freemasonry developed, of which the most significant were the Rosicrucians and the Illuminati. The Order of Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, in 1776.
