Adelphi, Society Of The

ADELFI, SOCIETÀ degli. — Secret society, established in France, according to some in 1804 through the efforts of Col. Oudet, Gen. Lafayette, and the Frusinate Luigi Angeloni, and according to others at an earlier time; it is nevertheless generally acknowledged to have been an offshoot of Freemasonry, to which it became hostile when, in the final years of the Empire, Freemasonry remained faithful to Napoleon, its great protector. Its aims were hostility to every revealed religion, the overthrow of monarchies, and the creation of popular republics. According to Salvotti, who mentions it in the indictment against Maroncelli (A. Luzio, Il processo Pellico-Maroncelli, Milan 1903, p. 446), it was divided into churches presided over by bishops.

The society spread throughout every country of Europe, and in Italy, especially in Piedmont, after the fall of Napoleon. In 1818 its members took the name Sublimi Maestri Perfetti, and became the leaven and secret bond of all the other sects. They also gave rise to the Federati. A. and the Federati formed a Committee of liaison and understanding, which was based in Geneva and reported to the Grande Firmamento of Paris. The moving spirit of the Geneva Committee, for Italy, was the exile Filippo Buonarroti. From Geneva, the revival of the Italian secret societies was promoted after the failure of the uprisings of 1820–21. The A. infiltrated the Carboneria, but did not merge with II. According to I. Rinieri (Della vita di Silvio Pellico, Turin 1899, pp. 17–18), the society of the A. was merely a front for the Carboneria; but this is not true. The A. appear in the trials against the Carbonari of 1821 (Luzio, op. cit., pp. 446–504). According to the duke of Modena, all the liberal secret societies were merely one society, which changed its name in order to avoid falling bodily into the hands of the authorities who persecuted them.