1st Edition
Marin Mersenne and the Study of Harmony From Sound to Music
By Leendert van der Miesen
Copyright 2025
362 Pages
by
Routledge
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... Read more
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
Biography
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.
