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Home , Galileo Galilei (opera), Gioseffo Zarlino, Giovanni Battista Doni, Jacopo Corsi, Marin Mersenne, Musical Acoustics

and Science from Leonardo to International Conference 13-15 November 2020 Organized by Centro Studi Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca

Keynote Speakers: Victor Coelho (Boston University) Rudolf Rasch (Utrecht University) The present conference has been made possibile with the friendly support of the

Centro Studi Oper a Omnia Luigi Boccherini www.luigiboccherini.org International Conference

Music and Science from Leonardo to Galileo

Organized by Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca

Virtual conference 13-15 November 2020

Programme Committee: Victor Coelho (Boston University) Roberto Illiano (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini) Fulvia Morabito (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini) Rudolf Rasch (Utrecht University) Massimiliano Sala (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)

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Keynote Speakers: Victor Coelho (Boston University) Rudolf Rasch (Utrecht University)

FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER

14.45-15.00 Opening • Fulvia Morabito (Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini)

15.00-16.00 Keynote Speaker 1: • Victor Coelho (Boston University), In the Name of the Father: as Historian and Critic

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16.15-18.15 The Galileo Family (Chair: Victor Coelho, Boston University) • Adam Fix (University of Minnesota), «Esperienza», Teacher of All Things: Vincenzo Galilei’s Music as Artisanal Epistemology • Roberta Vidic (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg), Galilei and the ‘Radicalization’ of the Italian and German • Daniel Martín Sáez (Universidad Autónoma de ), The through Opera: Ten ‘Galilean ’ from 1614 to 1638 • Galliano Ciliberti (Conservatorio ‘’, Monopoli), La «Missa La luna piena» (1657-1658) di Giuseppe Corsi e le teorie galileiane

SATURDAY 14 NOVEMBER

10.00-10.30 The Impact of Science on Musical Oeuvre (Chair: Fulvia Morabito, Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini) • Jason Stoessel (University of New England, Australia) – Denis Collins (The University of Queensland), «Sonorous Number-Objects»: The Relationship between Canonic Techniques, Combinatorics and Early Modern Scientific thought in 10.30-12.00 The , the Instrument and Musical • Théodora Psychoyou (Sorbonne Université), in Early 17th-century , between Naturalism, Mechanism and the Authorities of the Past • Leendert van der Miesen (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science / Humboldt University), «The Ear Needs Certain Rules»: and the Role of Listening in Early Modern Science • Jurij Dobravec (Društvo Jarina Bohinj), Musically and Geometrically Informed Depiction of Portative Organ from the Late 15th Century

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15.00-16.00 Keynote Speaker 2: • Rudolf Rasch (Utrecht University), Descartes and Beeckman on Music: The Philosopher and the Schoolmaster

16.15-18.15 Music, Science and (Chair: Rudolf Rasch, Utrecht University) • Tiago de Lima Castro (São Paulo State University-Unesp, Institute of Arts), Music as a Problem in Descartes Writings • Carlo Bosi (-Lodron-Universität Salzburg), «Intra quaternarii limites musicam intelligunt omnem consonantiam»: la musica nel pensiero di Giordano Bruno • Alexander Jakobidze-Gitman (Universität Witten/Herdecke, Zentrum Studium Fundamentale), «Fato Physico Musicus»: The Opposition Between Natural and Mechanical Motion in Philipp Melanchton’s Reference to Josquin Depréz • Gioia Filocamo (Istituto superiore di Studi musicali ‘G. Briccialdi’ di Terni / Università di Parma), Music for Anatomical Dissections at University SUNDAY 15 NOVEMBER

15.00-16.00 The Impact of Science on Musical Oeuvre (Chair: Rudolf Rasch, Utrecht University) • Carlos C. Iafelice (São Paulo State University-Unesp, Institute of Arts) and his Speculative Perspectives on Tonal Space Concerning Chromatic Music: The Case of Gesualdo’s «Tu m’uccidi crudele» • Nicholas Till (University of Sussex), «, or Philosophy»: Early Opera and Early Modern Science

16.15-17.45 Musical Theory and Science (Chair: Victor Coelho, Boston University) • David E. Cohen (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main), «…acutum latet propter velocitatem»: Gaffurio’s Acoustical Explanation of Quasi-Consonant Fourths • Michael Dodds (University of North Carolina, School of the Arts), Circular Diagrams in Early Modern Books on Music and Science: Conceptual Parallels & Biographical Intersections • Paolo Alberto Rismondo (Independent Researcher, ), Music Theory, Nobility, and Musical Patronage in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Venice

Keynote Speakers

• Victor Coelho (Boston University), In the Name of the Father: Vincenzo Galilei as Historian and Critic This paper examines Vincenzo Galilei as historian and critic, focusing on the last few chapters in his Dialogo della musica antica, e della moderna of 1581, which contain his theories about the origins of instruments, the scientific and mathematical properties of , and his often bitter, candid, and amusing opinions about contemporary musicians and the aesthetics of performance. While most studies of the Dialogo have focused on Vincenzo’s theoretical discussions of and his confrontation with Zarlino, few have looked closely at the fascinating and often subjective discussions at the conclusion of the treatise., which suggest the modes of discourse later adopted so successfully by Galileo.

• Rudolf Rasch (Utrecht University), Descartes and Beeckman on Music: The Philosopher and the Schoolmaster In 1618, while in Breda, in the , Descartes wrote his Compendium musicae for his recent friend (1588-1637), later schoolmaster in Utrecht, Rotterdam and Dordrecht. In doing so Descrates created a bond between them that could never be unbound. Twelve years later Descartes complained in letters to Beeckman and Mersenne that Beeckman was apparently claiming the contents of the Compendium musicae for himself, as if Descartes just had written down Beeckman’s views. Beeckman has left an extensive journal of his observations and ideas about a great many topics, from 1612 to 1634. In it music takes an important place. A comparison of Beeckman’s notes on music from the years 1614-1618 with Descartes’s Compendium musicae indeed reveals Descartes’s tribute to Beeckman regarding certain aspects of the Compendium musicae. It also reveals a fundamentally different approach to music by both men: for Descartes, the philosophical insights gained from studying music were the main focus; for Beeckman, understanding musical phenomena. This shows that the study of music by non-musicians, let us say the scientific study of music, can have many different faces, depending on the goal that the scholar in question is aiming at. Contributors

The Galileo Family • Adam Fix (University of Minnesota), «Esperienza», Teacher of All Things: Vincenzo Galilei’s Music as Artisanal Epistemology Remembered by most as Galileo’s father, Vincenzo is known to scholars as an accomplished lutenist and innovative music theorist. Historians of both science and music, however, have wondered if he also deserves the title of «experimental scientist». In 1589, Vincenzo recounted observations, taken from sonorous objects like lute strings and organ pipes, that seemed to contradict classical laws of consonance. Musical intervals, he claimed, were not fixed by simple number ratios, as Pythagorean dogma dictated, but varied based on the instruments sounding them. More generally, he claimed to have obtained his results from «the teacher of all things»: esperienza, delle cose maestra. Intriguingly, esperienza figured prominently in both Vincenzo’s practical- artistic writings and his theoretical-scientific writings. Where previous scholars have questioned the veracity of Vincenzo’s experiments and debated how indebted he remained to Pythagorean theory, I unpack how Vincenzo himself understood and utilized esperienza. I aim to show how , , and practice met on the common ground of Vincenzo’s music; clarify the importance of esperienza to his art and science; and situate him within current discussions on early modern artisanal epistemology and experimental sciences. Arguing against Cohen and Prins especially, I assert that Vincenzo’s esperienza functioned as a rational and empirical way of studying music’s nature. I then explore how this term played analogous roles in his science and practice. By treating his music as artisanal epistemology, I portray Vincenzo’s musical composition, like his experimentalism, as a form of natural knowledge-making. This talk explores music at the nexus of mathematical theory and empirical and instrumental practice while reinterpreting the early modern concept of esperienza.

• Roberta Vidic (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg), Galilei and the ‘Radicalization’ of the Italian and German Music Theory For centuries, Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics has served as a model for divergent approaches to scientific and musical knowledge. In the theory, they range from rationalism to ‘radical empiricism’. This paper examines the question of how empirical ‘turns’ in music theory can be traced back to the influence of Vincenzo and . The two-part talk will evidence that German and Italian discourses are more closely interrelated than generally known. The first part is concerned with Galileo Galilei’s (1564- 1642) development of scientific methodology and musical acoustics. Previous research on Galileo’s ‘coincidence theory’ (Barbieri 2001) and Galileo’s ‘logic of discovery and proof ’ (Wallace 1992) provided evidence for his reading of Benedetti’s writings (1585), to which a full commentary of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics should be added. My analysis of Vincenzo Galilei’s (1520-1591) examples for the unison (Dubbi, c. 66v) will then reveal a peculiar feature of the coincidence theory: the inversed grade of consonance between thirds and sixths. The second part is dedicated to reception history. Despite his knowledge of both Galileis, the Syndiakritische Methode of the German scientist and ‘radical empirist’ Joachim Jungius (1587-1657) is not based on observation. His little- known Harmonica (1679) will be examined in context of his educational reform (Meinel 2013) and of modern ‘scholarship of discovery’ (Boyer 1990). Between Zarlino and Riccati, the Italian mathematician Lemme Rossi (1601-1673) can represent an ‘Italian school’ of musical temperature (Barbieri 1987). Giordano Riccati (1709-1790) explicitly refers to Galileo’s ‘coincidence theory’ (Del Fra 2012) to justify the Paduan theories of . Overall, the mention of Vincenzo’s and Galileo’s findings do not necessary imply an adoption of the Galilean experimental method, but it is often paired with severe criticism of Zarlino. Research results finally question the use of the term ‘school’ in sources and literature.

• Daniel Martín Sáez (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), The Galileo Affair through Opera: Ten ‘Galilean Operas’ from 1614 to 1638 In 1610 Galileo Galilei published his , in the same court where, two decades earlier, Emilio de’ Cavalieri and Laura Guidiccioni performed the first fully-sung pastoral plays, a genre that reached its peak in 1600, during the nuptials of Maria de’ Medici and Henry iv. In 1613, Galileo had already described the , certain anomalies in Saturn, the mountains of the Moon, the satellites of Jupiter and sunspots, among other things. This caused a commotion in Europe, both in Catholic and Protestant countries. It is not surprising that opera, a genre open to metaphysics and cosmology from its origins, received Galileo better than any other art. That same year, as is well known, the new Galilean found its first theatrical representation in a Florentine barriera, which was transformed into an opera the following year in Rome before an audience of religious personalities. Here, the stelle medicee, the great emblem of Heliocentrism and the power of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany, appeared on the stage acting and . From that moment on, this emblem was used in the edition of several Florentine printed sources, even after the condemnation of Copernicanism of 1616. This included some religious operas made during the regency of Christina of Lorraine (whose relationship with Galileo was so important) and Maria Maddalena of Austria. Galileo’s connection with opera continued in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War, where an important Galileo’s opponent, Orazio Grassi, wrote the libretto of a magnificent melodrama. After of 1633, during the papacy of Urban viii, we will find new operas related to Galileo sponsored by the papacy. They were written by Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, the future Pope Clement ix, and they offer an image of Galileo (on the part of the Church) more ambivalent than is sometimes supposed. We will analyze ten ‘Galilean’ operas according to the religious, political and scientific context in which they were born, as a unique example to understand the complexity of the Modern Age.

• Galliano Ciliberti (Conservatorio ‘Nino Rota’, Monopoli), La Missa «La luna piena» (1657-1658) di Giuseppe Corsi e le teorie galileiane Tra il 1657 e il 1658 Giuseppe Corsi (1631/32 – post 1691) fu maestro di cappella nella basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore a Roma. Nell’archivio di questa importante istituzione è custodita una sua messa intitolata La luna piena perché ispirata all’immagine dell’Assunta affrescata tra il 1610 e il 1612 da Ludovico Cardi detto il Cigoli (1559-1613) nella Cappella Borghese della stessa basilica. L’immagine della Madonna è, infatti, collocata sopra una luna piena rugosa e sferica costellata di crateri. Il pittore si era infatti ispirato alle innovative teorie sulle macchie lunari di Galileo Galilei (di cui era strettissimo amico e con il quale aveva intrapreso un intenso carteggio) esposte nel Sidereus Nuncius (1610). Anche nella Missa di Corsi a otto voci in due cori ritroviamo uno stretto collegamento con l’affresco e giocoforza con il pensiero di Galileo: l’utilizzazione di note bianche e di color, di elementi tematici e ritmici ricordano sovente la quantità e la posizione delle stelle e dei pianeti presenti nell’opera di Galileo. The Impact of Science on Musical Oeuvre • Jason Stoessel (University of New England, Australia) – Denis Collins (The University of Queensland, Australia), «Sonorous Number- Objects»: The Relationship between Canonic Techniques, Combinatorics and Early Modern Scientific thought in Rome Most historians of early 17th-century music have overlooked the cultural significance of highly inventive artificioso compositions, especially those using canonic techniques. We propose that several Roman of artificioso compositions participate in an early 17th-century intellectual culture that witnessed the rise of new systems for understanding the natural world. In the most famous expositions of these systems of knowledge, namely ’s Astronomia nova (1609) and Galileo’s Il saggiatore (1623) and Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632), the sensible world of natural phenomena is verified by mathematical demonstration and rational induction. Roman composers Paolo Agostini (ca. 1583-1629), Romano Micheli (ca. 1575-1659/1660) and Pier Francesco Valentini (1586-1654) seem to respond to this new approach in their voluminous and ingenious canonic compositions and in their writings about music. Valentini, for example, in the preface to his polymorphous canon Illos tuos misericordes oculos (1629), provided a microcosmic summary of the relationship between ‘sonorous number-objects’, the physical world and musical thought that typifies the intellectual context of early 17th-century Rome. Through the lens of ’s (1650), further connections will be drawn between combinatorics as a universal tool for the mathematical analysis of the natural world and compositions by Roman composers featuring enigmatic canonic techniques.

The Ear, the Instrument and Musical Acoustics • Théodora Psychoyou (Sorbonne Université), Musical Acoustics in Early 17th-century France, between Naturalism, Mechanism and the Authorities of the Past Questions about nature and proprieties of sound are object of numerous experiences in the first half of the 17th century, contributing to the epistemological paradigm shift and to a new basis on perception and thus of esthetics of music. This paper will focus on aspects about sound in writings by Marin Mersenne and his contemporaries in France, including the reception of Frances Bacon’s experiments on sound (and the strange publication of Histoire naturelle de Francois Bacon in 1631) and Galileo Galilei’s proposals, edited by Mersenne in French in 1639. We will concentrate on both the methodological and the discursive main characteristics of the addressed topics. These topics include the balance between sound, music and noise; the articulation between sound, space and architecture; the analogy of sound questions with the model of the optics; and the mapping of sound proprieties (vibrations, , spectrum, etc.). The second aspect concerns the way new experimental methods integrate discourses on music and music theory: there is a tension between modern thought, leaning on experimental methods, and modern way of writing, that takes distance from the traditional apologetic forms and, above all, from the status accorded to the authorities of the past. The figure of Mersenne is, thus, an emblematic example of this paradoxical situation, as far as he provides a modern thought through an ancient form of writing. From this latter point of view, Descartes adopts an opposite attitude, as we will argue through some examples. Finally, this link between music theory and modern science will also be discussed through the (often conflictual) comparison between Ancients and Moderns. Besides Mersenne’s writings, we will also consider those by Descartes, Gassendi, Milliet De Chales and Claude Perrault: this corpus draws a double perspective, a naturalistic vision of sound, including discussion on noise, along with the mechanistic vision.

• Leendert van der Miesen (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science / Humboldt University), «The Ear Needs Certain Rules»: Marin Mersenne and the Role of Listening in Early Modern Science Historians of early modern science have long devoted attention to the ways in which sensory practices were controlled, monitored, and validated. Although the senses played a central role in early modern science, most natural philosophers agreed that the senses were easily deceived and needed instruction. Scholars working on music similarly emphasized the role of reason, arguing that the ear cannot be trusted. At the same time, empirical evidence took on an increasingly central role. Exemplary in this regard is the work of the French scholar and music theorist Marin Mersenne (1588-1648). Mersenne provided a plethora of acoustical experiments in his Harmonie universelle (1636-1637) in which he detailed experiments on the properties of strings, metals, pipes, and voices. Although an advocate of empirical evidence, he warned his readers against relying too much on the senses and emphasized that use of the ear needed to be disciplined by rules, mathematics, witnesses, and common sense. This paper explores how early modern scientists like Mersenne problematized the ear while at the same time utilizing sensory evidence in greater degrees. A close reading of Mersenne’s works and correspondence can shed new light on how the ear was conceptualized as an instrument of knowledge and highlight new research practices in early acoustics. The paper demonstrates that Mersenne relied on a wide network of ‘ear-witnesses’ and collaborators such as musicians and instrument builders who took part in his observations on and temperaments. Whereas much research has emphasized Mersenne’s music theoretical project as a rational effort, one less concerned with individual experiences, this paper shows Mersenne had a more ambivalent position towards the ear. The senses, and especially the ear, were far from unproblematic for Mersenne and continually needed to be examined and validated.

• Jurij Dobravec (Društvo Jarina Bohinj), Musically and Geometrically Informed Depiction of Portative Organ from the Late 15th Century Proportions define the shape of musical instruments. It is particularly notable at pipe organs where fractions of pipes’ measures strictly rule the pitch and the musical scale. The proportions of pipes’ length against their diameters determines the character of a separate pipe and the whole register. Proportions of the classical organ facade, too, follow the same circle-square-rules as lead Leonardo’s L’uomo vitruviano. In art, the theory on proportions began with Leonardo da Vinci’s fellows, possibly in Brunelleschi’s workshop. Besides Leon Battista Alberti, Piero della Francesca notably discussed 3D objects above landscapes and interiors. This paper reports the observations of the wall- paintings by Master Bolfgang from 1463 at Mirna, Slovenia, particularly his portable organ. The analyses reveal the painter’s expertise on the instrument’s proportions and some pre-Renaissance insight to geometry and perception of the solids. Comparatively to the theoretical works and many other small organ depictions of that period, the research focused onto the question, to what extent the painter intertwined the audible and visible mathematics. The distinctive scale(s) of pipes and fully chromatic keyboard show onto the roots of the standards known today. Precisely shaded pipes show their 3D cylindrical shape despite the relatively raw painting technique. To a measurable extent the flute-like register and the keyboard follow the perspective otherwise well expressed in organ-case and bellows. Some observed could be ascribed to pre-Leonardo’s scientific ignorance. Above all, the sequence of thirty-one pipes comparable with the same number of keys at Mirna reveals the possibility of playing the contemporary Buxheim, Robertsbridge and Faenza keyboard music. The object in question shows that the practice of those compositions’ performance stretched out of the cathedral’s ripieno organs to the intimate rooms of castles and country churches.

Music, Science and Philosophy • Tiago de Lima Castro (São Paulo State University-Unesp, Institute of Arts), Music as a Problem in Descartes Writings René Descartes, the philosopher of the cogito, discussed music in his first work, the Compendium musicæ (Compendium of music), in 1618 and continued to discuss it in correspondence throughout his life, with interlocutors like Marin Mersenne, , and others. Although music is not the core of Descartes’ production, this theme is nonetheless articulated with the development of his major theories. In this context, the traditional separation between music as liberal art, considered in a theoretical way, and as a practice was questioned. Descartes in his first book experimented his method proposing that the theory and practice of music each have their own fundamentals, with a starting point in the clear and evident idea that all senses can produce some pleasure. The purpose of music is to produce pleasure and move the passions, or affects, in the listener, which places turn the subject as the purpose of music. The passions are a theme that Descartes discussed until his last work Passions of Soul. In his treatises and On Man, Descartes proposed a way to relate the acoustic explanation of musical intervals to effects in our physiology, for instance the idea that the major chord is perfect and natural. In a certain way, this describes the interrelationships between different areas of knowledge like a knowledge tree formed according to reason. However, the use of reason to explain how some musical intervals provoke specific passions, led to suspect that reason was not enough to explain music. Some scholars tend to understand music only as a support for Descartes to discuss mathematics in his first years. Nevertheless, by monitoring the relationship between his musical reflection and the development of Cartesianism as well as some problems that musical reflection brought to it, music is a problem that runs throughout his work. • Carlo Bosi (Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg), «Intra quaternarii limites musicam intelligunt omnem consonantiam»: la musica nel pensiero di Giordano Bruno Nella gnoseologia di Giordano Bruno, la natura — e di conseguenza l’uomo — è costantemente in uno stato di trasformazione. Solo attraverso la conoscenza e l’interiorizzazione dei meccanismi relativi a questa metamorfosi ininterrotta, il mago-filosofo può acquisire la capacità di intervenire con successo nei processi naturali e di riorganizzarli e ‘manipolarli’ secondo la sua volontà. La musica gioca un ruolo non secondario in questo sistema filosofico; in esso l’arte dei suoni vi è concepita sia come fenomeno ‘fisico’ che come concetto simbolico. Questo nonostante molto spesso di Bruno è stato più che altro sottolineato il suo ricorso a metafore visive, più che auditive. Ciò è pienamente comprensibile, visto il primato del senso della vista ai fini della concettualizzazione filosofica e scientifica del Nolano. Tuttavia il filosofo non raramente si avvale di metafore musicali per meglio esplicitare e concretizzare il messaggio o il concetto di volta in volta portato in campo. In questo intervento verranno presi in esame alcuni passaggi esemplari tratti dall’opera di Bruno dove l’occorrenza di termini e concetti musicali e comunque relativi al fenomeno sonoro funge da veicolo per l’illustrazione e il chiarimento di snodi importanti della filosofia nolana.

• Alexander Jakobidze-Gitman (Universität Witten/Herdecke, Zentrum Studium Fundamentale), «Fato Physico Musicus»: The Opposition Between Natural and Mechanical Motion in Philipp Melanchton’s Reference to Josquin Depréz In histories of musical aesthetics, Philipp Melanchton is mentioned (if at all) as a humanist whose rare statements on music express a typical ‘musical ethos’ of Lutheranism — i.e. the justification of the pleasure of music listening as God’s gift. In my paper, though, I proceed from his writings not on religion but on natural science: at some passages of Initia doctrinae physicae and Erotemata dialecticae Melanchton quite suddenly refers to Josquin Depréz in order to illustrate certain postulates of his physical theory. As it frequently happens in the history of science, the innovation emerges not in a form of strikingly new idea but rather as an uncommon combination of various well-known and time- honored concepts and their application to an unusual material. Admittedly, the most of notions used by Melanchton are borrowed from other thinkers: his conception of animal spirits is taken from ; his recourse to the «natural impetus» and the metaphor of «world machine» originates from the late Medieval philosophy (Jean Buridan, Giles of Rome, Gerard Odonis); the expression of «machina corporis» — from Gregory of Nyssa. The idea that «natural motion» results from the unique combination of star constellations with four humors (i.e. blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm) also stays in accordance with the occult trend of Renaissance thought. And yet, what makes these thoughts of Melanchton groundbreaking, is not only the application of all these notions to species , but also the contraposing to it the motions of automaton as a metaphor of correctly executed, but uninspired work of art. I will argue that Melanchton’s seemingly parenthetical references to music testify that he was groping towards a new anthropological concept: the philosopher foreshadows not only the project of musical automata elaborated one century later by Athanasius Kircher, but also the aesthetic of the sublime (that arose towards the end of the seventeenth century) and even the aesthetic of sensualism/sensibility/Empfindsamkeit (emerged only in the mid-eighteenth century). Especially in the latter, the opposition between the organism and the mechanism played a crucial role and was applied to music.

• Gioia Filocamo (Istituto superiore di Studi musicali ‘G. Briccialdi’ di Terni / Università di Parma), Music for Anatomical Dissections at University As the authoritative Celsus (De medicina, 1st century AD) and Galen (De anatomicis administrationibus, 2nd century AD) report, the dissection of corpses for medical and scientific purposes was practiced since ancient times, on bodies of people rejected from society. After centuries without proper documentation, the anatomical practice had a true rebirth in the late Middle Ages, realized privately. Its formalization through public demonstrations at universities could also be achieved thanks to the explicit endorsement of Pope Sixtus iv, who in April 1482 authorized autopsies at the University of Tübingen. The construction of the first permanent structure specifically dedicated to anatomical dissections took place in 1594 and is still in existence: the anatomical theatre of Padua. Here they taught some of the best medical teachers in Europe, including the legendary anatomist Girolamo Fabrici d’Acquapendente (ca. 1533-1619), who instituted a natural philosophical program of anatomical inquiry and held the chair in anatomy and surgery from 1565 to 1613. Part of the Venetian Republic, Padua welcomed both its studium and resistance to papal interference that traditionally characterized Venetian politics. In fact, Padua welcomed numerous Protestant foreign students by virtue of the particular privilege that prevailed only there: it was possible to graduate without undergoing the Catholic professio fidei imposed by Pope Pius iv in the Counter-Reformation era through the bull In sacrosancta (1564). German students belonged to the Natio Germanica Artistarum, an institution that recorded many of their customs, chronicles and expectations related to university life. And right from the Proceedings of the Natio Germanica we learn that in at least two occasions — in December 1597 and January 1600 — the German students of Padua requested the execution of music during anatomical demonstrations, in order to raise their spirits. We know that music was present in some anatomical theatres of the modern age, but the chronicles refer mainly to celebratory and festive situations (inaugural lectures, carnival parties, etc.), which also included an autopsy to demonstrate the excellence of the teachers of the university itself: universities competed with each other also through this sort of events. But the case of Padua is probably different. In fact, according to Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) — a famous professor of anatomy in Padua until 1542, who wrote the revolutionary treatise De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (Basel, Johannes Oporinus, 1543) —, the anatomical dissection was needed to investigate the human body as a curious detective would have done, not only to confirm the structural details as they were described in classic books based on the intellectual framework drawn from Galenic medicine and Aristotelian natural philosophy. My paper explores the complex meaning of the need for music expressed by German students in the context of anatomy lectures not intended for the general public, and the function of music in this peculiar scientific environment.

The Impact of Science on Musical Oeuvre • Carlos C. Iafelice (São Paulo State University-Unesp, Institute of Arts) Giovanni Battista Doni and his Speculative Perspectives on Tonal Space Concerning Chromatic Music: The Case of Gesualdo’s «Tu m’uccidi crudele» In Rome in the 1630s, the Florentine humanist Giovanni Battista Doni (1595-1647), in the service of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, wrote a renewed interpretation of the Greek genera and the modal system that led him to a very particular understanding of tonal space in contemporary music. The main corpus of his writings comes from his unpublished Trattato de’ generi e de’ modi della musica (I-Bc Ms. D 143) written in the early 1630s. From this treatise, a simplified version of his doctrine was first published in a volume entitled Compendio del trattato de’ generi e de’ modi della musica (Rome, 1635), and later in a page-by-page commentary entitled Annotazioni sopra il Compendio de’ generi e de’ modi della musica (Rome, 1640), which also includes supplementary material on the main subject. Possessed of a vast erudition, Doni’s detailed epistemological approach aimed for what he considered an ‘appropriate reconstruction’ of the effetti meravigliosi of ancient music, which, in his opinion, was abundantly misinterpreted by precedent generations of both composers and theorists. One of the key points of this reconstruction was characterized by the presumption that chromatic music is a mixture of tuoni, not genera (as claimed by most of his predecessors). In a complex way, this transposition played a central role in his understanding of tonal space, especially regarding the significance of the system’s applicability by means of an instrumental perspective. Despite Doni’s criticisms of his predecessor’s misconceptions, chapter three of his Compendio presents two exceptions concerning composers who produced ‘truly chromatic compositions’, i.e.: Carlo Gesualdo (Resta di Darmi Noia) and Monteverdi (Il Lamento d’Arianna). Although Doni gives significant attention to Monteverdi’s Lamento, he pays particular regard to Gesualdo throughout the treatise. A predilection to the Principe di Venosa among the more contemporary composers is also perceived immediately in the treatise’s frontispiece where Doni indicates an addendum that contains an original Duo (featured by the «mutationi di genere e di tuono»), and the first part of Gesualdo’s . Ultimately, he also includes a sonnet, Passa la vita all’abbassar d’un ciglio, written by Pope Urban viii and set to music by Pietro Eredia, which had not been mentioned prior to its presentation in the aggiunta. As the Duo is considered a «mal composte modulationi» by Doni himself and Eredia’s Passa la vita is probably intended to conform to his assumptions in regards to genera and modes, including Gesualdo’s madrigal provides a particularly interesting example in our current investigation: an opportunity to determine how Doni’s renewed interpretations of tonal space could be applied to a finished music composition, i.e. , without the influence of Doni’s doctrine. Unfortunately, these considerations were only achieved in the beginning section of Gesualdo’s Tu m’uccidi crudele, which include a select excerpt that is presented both in score notation («intavolatura ordinaria») and his very particular intabulation for . Therefore, the aim of this paper is to attain a wider range of speculative conclusions through an in-depth application of Doni’s doctrine to Gesualdo’s Tu m’uccidi crudele, which includes a comparison of data from the other two examples presented in the Compendio along with the entire doctrine taken from the exposition in his two other treatises. The result of this investigation may not only lead to an exploration of other perspectives of tonal space in Gesualdo’s music, but also, at least in hypothesis, in what is extensively called ‘chromatic music’ composed around early Seicento.

• Nicholas Till (University of Sussex), «Orpheus, or Philosophy»: Early Opera and Early Modern Science In the third act of Striggio’s and Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607), Orfeo seizes the boat of Charon, the ferryman of the dead, and propels himself across the river Styx. As he does so a chorus of Infernal Spirits extols Orfeo’s courage in penetrating the underworld, comparing it to the navigational feats of Jason and the Argonauts, Daedalus’s mechanical conquest of flight, and Phaeton’s seizing of the chariot of the sun. Although such exploits were commonly deployed in classical and medieval times as warnings against curiosity, hubris or political overreaching, by the early modern period Jason and Daedalus/ Icarus were more commonly being adduced to represent the navigational and scientific achievements of the era. Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were regularly represented as Jason by poets, painters and theatre-makers, and in turn all of these explorers navigational and intellectual, mythological or historical, came to stand for Galileo (e.g. Kepler’s reference to Galileo as «the Florentine Argonaut»). Furthermore, although historians have often noted the co-incidence of early modern science and early modern opera, the sheer extent of the relationship has not been adequately documented. Although Galileo himself was not present at the performance of Euridice in in 1600, the event brought together a remarkable constellation of Galileans amongst both its creators ( Jacopo Corsi, , , Cigoli) and the audience (Antonio de’ Medici, Cardinal Del Monte, Rubens, Nicolas-Claude de Peiresc, et al.). Furthermore, my research has uncovered clear evidence that knew Galileo by the time he wrote the libretto for Orfeo. In this paper I want to explicate these relations in detail, and to attempt a hypothesis as to what lay behind these relations in terms of social, cultural and intellectual synergies, examining the function of science and experiment in early absolutist courts, the epistemological presuppositions of early science and early opera, and ’s own scientific interests. My title is taken from an essay by Francis Bacon in his De Sapienta veterum of 1609, his reading of the Greek myths as allegories of science, an Italian translation of which was published in 1618 and dedicated to Galileo’s employer Cosimo ii de’ Medici. In this essay Bacon proposes that Orpheus’s descent into the realm of the dead should be read as an allegory of the scientist’s «noblest work of all, nothing less than the restitution and renovation of things corruptible» (ie, medicine). In place of the esoteric/occult Orpheus of the Renaissance, I will propose an understanding of Orphic opera as an artform well aware of the new scientific paradigm that constituted the modern age, and of its own modernity.

Musical Theory and Science • David E. Cohen (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt am Main), «…acutum latet propter velocitatem»: Gaffurio’s Acoustical Explanation of Quasi-Consonant Fourths The eminent music theorist Franchino Gaffurio, in his Practica musice (Milan, 1496) addresses an interesting question: Given that the is regarded as a dissonance when it occurs above the lowest sounding voice (and hence always when it occurs in two parts), why is it treated as though it were a consonance — relieved of the requirements of preparation and resolution — when it lies between the upper voices, for example, in those frequently occurring sonorities which figured bass would identify as 6/3 chords? For these were treated as concordant despite their inclusion of such fourths. Gaffurio’s answer represents an unusual intrusion of musica theorica into a purely practica context. Based on one of the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems, it is, briefly, that since lower pitch is produced by ‘slower motions’, it makes a stronger impression on the ear than higher pitch, which «escapes notice owing to its velocity» (acutum latet propter velocitatem). Consequently, the qualities of consonance and dissonance are less audible between higher pitches than between lower. The principle underlying this explanation starkly contradicts the much more common conflation of higher pitch with greater auditory salience that is a frequent feature of early acoustic theories — an account that Gaffurio himself had espoused in his Theorica musice just four years earlier (1492). Yet in the Practica, Gaffurio cites that earlier discussion in Theorica as supporting his later, apparently diametrically opposed view. In this paper I examine Gaffurio’s two accounts of pitch in of their ancient sources, attempting to explain why he sees them as concordant rather than conflicting. I then conclude with reflections of a more metatheoretical nature, concerning in particular the role that a specific sort of independent, empirical observation plays in his handling of this question, and the way in which he thereby anticipates much later music- theoretical developments.

• Michael Dodds (University of North Carolina, School of the Arts), Circular Diagrams in Early Modern Books on Music and Science: Conceptual Parallels & Biographical Intersections The epistemic shift underlying the Scientific Revolution may be traced in parallel developments in the mapping of musical and physical space. Circular diagrams in music theory texts reveal the influence of spatial and temporal disciplines, including astronomy, chronometry, geography, and navigation. If these sister disciplines had always been tied to music through musica mundana, their influence on the mapping of tonal space only intensified in the early th17 century, exhibiting a concurrent shift from the symbolic to the empirical. At the wellspring of Greek philosophy, Plato in Timaeus had united astronomy and metaphysics, mathematics and music, to describe the creation of the cosmos as nested, revolving circles governed by ratios. The great cosmographer Ptolemy correlated the two- Greater Perfect System with the Zodiac, asking the reader to imagine straightening out the circular Zodiac and mapping it onto the , or wrapping the linear double-octave into the circle of the ecliptic. Similar correspondences between the division of the octave and the planetary orbits on the basis of harmonic ratios were a staple of the rich Pythagorean tradition even as late as Kepler’s 1619 Harmonices mundi. A medieval instance of symbolic circularity is a wheel of the eight modes in John Cotton’s De musica, its circular organization graphically asserting the comprehensiveness of the octenary modal system. The symbolic resonances of John’s wheel are reinforced by numerous representations of the earth in other books of that era, including a representation of harmonia mundi in a copy of Hildegard von Bingen’s Liber divinorum operum produced ca. 1210-1230 and preserved in the Biblioteca Statale of Lucca. The Swiss humanist is one of several early modern polymaths whose work invites parallels between the mapping of tonal and geographical space. By the time the imperial poet laureate published Dodecachordon (Basel, 1547), he had already long since made his mark as an innovative geographer. His De geographia (Basel, 1527) parallels Dodecachordon in synthesizing ancient sources like Ptolemy and Strabo with the new visions of the world presented by Apianus and Waldseemüller. Thus Glarean engages with freshly humanist sensibilities, synthesizing received species theory to propose a new and better system. The cosmographical charts in Dodecachordon and in ’s Istitutioni harmoniche (Venice, 1558) reveal a humanistic programme of reconciling classical authorities with observed data. Zarlino’s circular illustration of the senario legitimates the syntonic ; its circular organization has nothing to do with tonal circularity, but rather with graphical logic and rhetoric. In contrast, circles by René Descartes, Quirinus van Blankenburg (based on work by Christian Huygens) and Isaac Newton present logarithmic circular divisions of the scale — approaches made possible by recent innovations by ’s and John Napier. If these scientists were mainly captivated by musical temperament, volvelles in several 17th-century music theory treatises, including the Arte de Musica of Antonio Fernandez (Lisbon, 1626), applied the notion of revolving transposition to an ever-expanding tonal sphere — a crucial development in the transition from the Renaissance modes to the major-minor tonal system of the Baroque era.

• Paolo Alberto Rismondo (Independent Researcher, Venice), Music Theory, Nobility, and Musical Patronage in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Venice Throughout the sixteenth century prominent Venetian noblemen were deeply involved with music theory; this intellectual activity was kept intentionally on a highly abstract level, for any manual operation would have deprived that noblemen of their aristocratic rights. Their interest can first be documented in the Dal Lago-Aaron-Spataro correspondence, by other scattered writings by Francesco Zorzi, Daniele Barbaro and Giovanni Battista Benedetti. The Accademia Venetiana was a major impetus for music theory studies, which resulted in the important figure of Gioseffo Zarlino and his treatises. Further connections can be gleaned from a oration by Pietro Gaetano (a singer of the Venetian ducal chapel), from the polemic between Zarlino and Vincenzo Galilei, and subsequently from the music and music theory interests of his son, Galileo Galilei. A writing by Pietro Della Valle offers a interesting comparison with the Roman Barberini music and music theory circle. As the knowledge of ancient and modern music theory deepened, a more pragmatic and practical approach was becoming necessary; knowledge of ‘Greek ancient music theory’ (a rather vague label encompassing a thousand years of diverse writings) was now more specific, thanks to the study of the manuscripts copies of treatises of Greek music theory in the Marciana library; the harsh Zarlino-Galilei polemic undermined the consideration of music theory as a purely abstract matter; more importantly, the musical output of the time moved away from that image. By the central decades of Seicento, Venetian nobility was no more involved with any music theory (both ancient or modern). The final blow to a lofty idea of music theory and of music in general was, of course, the introduction of opera in musica on the Venetian theaters, associated with a totally hedonistic approach to music and musical activities. Centro Studi Oper a Omnia Luigi Boccherini www.luigiboccherini.org