A.
29th October 1831.
My very dear Sir,
... I have by me decisive historical records and documents, researches into works in the sect-language,[82] treatises on the use of the sect-language; in fine, I have as much as would make all our adversaries remain frost-bound and mute. And to me it is a kind of enigma to see how matters so multiple, so consentaneous, so palpable, which have been going on in a lapse of six centuries (from Frederick II. up to our time), have not ever been either discerned or revealed. There is not the least doubt that that Emperor projected a change of religion, and the destruction of the Roman Church. The Popes had no alternative but either to destroy him and his party, or else to be themselves destroyed, and their cult with them. That opinion of Foscolo, regarded by all as a fantasy, which led him to say that Dante wished to change the religion, is a certain fact; and his fantasy consists only in his having supposed that this was an idea of Dante’s own, and not that of a most numerous, most potent, and most wide-spread sect, upheld by men of great power....
Never will I set it down, never, that there was a project of expelling Jesus Christ from the altars—only that there was a project for restoring His worship to its primitive simplicity, and that they profaned the Catholic doctrine by a concerted phraseology which involved a political scheme. Wherefore scandalize the world by the revelation of a daring purpose which may do discredit to illustrious authors, and bring down upon myself the ill-will of the sect which still exists, and has power and influence in the social world? The fact is that the true intention of that secret society, to which belonged all the authors whom I am engaged in examining, manifested itself plainly in the effects of the French Revolution at the close of last century....
Reghellini says openly that Dante’s poem is a Masonic poem; and, before he wrote this, I had already seen it for myself....
I have also made some examination of English poetry—that of the time of Cromwell; I know, however, and know for certain, that Chaucer is in the same boat....
Your highly obliged
Gabriele Rossetti.