WE ARE PRODUCED BY FAR REACHING INFLUENCES; HOW MASONRY WAS INVENTED

If we do not understand something, does it mean that it doesn't exist? Within the Craft, if our true potential is underestimated, does the meanMasonry has an entire aspect that exists but is undiscovered?Perhaps the answers lie in our symbolic history, in the arts,  Insufficient you think?  Let's consider then that the period of the Renaissance occurred within a historical context. Let's for a moment use what we know of that period of time.  Italy was not as it is today. It was a cluster of Principalities. We know the Medici became influential because of their penchant for art, for politics for ambition. We also know the Medici nurtured the arts but Masons would ask why and how?  For the answer to that, we have to look further back in history to the events that freed the imagination from the restriction of religious control. And for that we can for a moment, consider Wm Wycliffe a man that translated the Bible from the original Hebrew. For centuries leading up to this, the church had complete control. Liturgy was offered in Latin. The common man was essentially illiterate and few read Latin except clergy. Wycliffe broke the rules of control and translated directly.  This is where the imagination comes into play in two distinct ways. A century earlier printing presses were invented. And this is where one man began not only printing the Bible but printing it for the first time, in the common language. People were able to make their own translation. They discovered a God of benevolence, compassion, and understanding. Clerics who for centuries controlled their flocks with expressions of misogyny, damnation and fear recognized the threat.  So did King Henry. The power of the Cardinals was eroding quickly.  He stepped in an literally looted the remnants of that power.  For this, men of such imagination were labelled heretics and burned. The ideas florished.  Art became the vehicle.