Author Description

Hipolito da Costa was a Brazilian journalist and diplomat. He is remembered for his persecution by the Inquisition for being a freemason and his subsequent rescue by English brethren "who got him under the protection of the British flag." As author of History of the Dionysian Artificers, published posthumously in 1820, he attempted to draw parallels between masonic initiation and those of the Orphic mysteries of Eleusis. This original is an extremely rare manuscript.