Marin Mersenne and the Study of Harmony delves into the central role of music among the early modern sciences by focusing on the work of the French polymath Marin Mersenne (1588–1648). Although now regarded more as an art than a science, music was for many early modern scholars a universal science for studying the harmonies present in all beings. For Mersenne, music’s ability to be quantified while being experienced aesthetically meant that it was the central science to approximate the sounding and inaudible harmonies present in the world and universe at large. Bringing together Mersenne’s interests in the physics of sound and hearing, musical composition, instruments, curiosities, and music from outside Europe, this book shows why so many scholars were drawn to music and how music was at the center of the early modern debate on the foundations of knowledge. 1) This book represents the first monograph in English of Marin Mersenne since 1988 2) The book includes many archival findings and incorporates a wide variety of primary sources and letters by Mersenne and his contemporaries 3) The book brings Mersenne’s work in dialogue with the current state of history of science and music historical research, dealing with the places of knowledge, the history of cultural encounters, and the history of scientific observation.
Note on typography and citation
List of figures
List of music examples
Introduction: Harmonies at Work
1. Music, the Measure of Sound
2. Instruments between Art and Nature
3. Collecting Curiosities: Images, Observations, and Earwitnesses
4. The octave pleases all: Questioning the Universality of Music
5. Counting and Composing
Conclusion
Appendix A: Composition of Harmonie universelle
Appendix B: Composition of Harmonicorum libri XII
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
Leendert van der Miesen is a musicologist and historian, with a focus on the connections between music, science, and sound in the early modern period. He has held fellowships at the Collaborative Research Center 980 in Berlin, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and Bibliotheca Hertziana Max Planck Institute for Art History.
