Music

Featured exhibit items for music.

Exhibit Items

1	Dialogue on Ancient and Modern Music Galilei, Vincenzo (1581) From childhood, Galileo’s world was shaped by music. His father, Vincenzo Galilei, was a prominent music theorist who contributed to the development of Italian opera. This book, Vincenzo’s major work, was acquired in Fall 2014 with assistance from the Athletics Department.
1	The Marriage of Philology and Mercury Capella, Martianus (1499) Capella described the seven liberal arts. The first three are grammar, logic or dialectic, and rhetoric. Then come the mathematical sciences, geometry and arithmetic. Geometrical circles in motion make astronomy. Numbers in motion make music.
2	Harmony of the Universe Kepler, Johann (1619) In this work, Kepler integrated theoretical astronomy and music, showing that the motions of the planets employ the same numerical ratios as the most harmonious musical scales.
2	The Advantages of Country Living de’ Crescenzi, Pietro (1471) This is the earliest published work on agriculture, a manual for managing a feudal estate. It is an ancestor to the early printed herbals, and explains what plants one must cultivate to be able to make the common remedies.
2	On the Two Worlds, namely the Major and the Minor Fludd, Robert (1617-1621) For Robert Fludd, the universe is a monochord, its physical structure unintelligible without an understanding of music. In another section of the book, Fludd depicts the universe as a Temple of Music.
3	Universal Music-Making Kircher, Athanasius (1650) This 17th-century treatise on music shows a mechanical, water-driven organ. Water enters on the right side of the diagram, turning a gear mechanism that animates a cylinder roll and keyboard. Musical notation cut into the cylinder roll determines the keys depressed for any given time.
4	Harmonics Ptolemy, Claudius (1682) Ptolemy’s influential music theory was related to his astronomy. Through sight, we apprehend beauty through astronomy. Through hearing, we apprehend beauty through harmony.
5	Memoir and Correspondence Herschel, Caroline (1876) The 19th century saw an unprecedented expansion of known objects in the universe. William and Caroline Herschel conducted a comprehensive search of northern skies with telescopes powerful enough to resolve many nebulae into star clusters.
10	Celebrated Questions on the Book of Genesis Marsenne, Marin (1623) Commentaries on Genesis often served as scientific treatises or encyclopedias. Mersenne, a French theologian, astronomer, music theorist and scientific correspondent, addressed a wide range of issues in cosmology in this commentary.
11	General History of China, vol. 1 du Halde, J.B. (1741) Du Halde lived in China for nearly 30 years. This work recounts the story of Candida Xu, who collaborated with the Jesuit astronomers as had her grandfather, Xu Guangki. For a foldout map of China, du Halde drew upon the Kangxi atlases of 1717 and 1721.