Musurgia Universalis

Musurgia

Musurgia Universalis, sive Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni ("The Universal Musical Art, of the Great Art of Consonance and Dissonance")[1] is a 1650 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was printed in Rome by Ludovico Grignani[2]: xxxiii  and dedicated to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria.[3]: 11  It was a compendium of ancient and contemporary thinking about music, its production and its effects. It explored, in particular, the relationship between the mathematical properties of music (e.g. harmony and dissonance) with health and rhetoric.[4]: 36  The work complements two of Kircher's other books: Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica had set out the secret underlying coherence of the universe and Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae had explored the ways of knowledge and enlightenment. What Musurgia Universalis contained, through its exploration of dissonance within harmony, was an explanation of the presence of evil in the world.[5]: 28 

  1. ^ Knobloch, E. (1979). "Musurgia Universalis: Unknown Combinatorial Studies in the Age of Baroque Absolutism". History of Science. 17 (4): 258–275. Bibcode:1979HisSc..17..258K. doi:10.1177/007327537901700402. S2CID 160522206.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Brigham was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Brewer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Dietrich Bartel (1 July 1997). Musica Poetica: Musical-Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-3593-3. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Godwin was invoked but never defined (see the help page).