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Music: a Book of Knowledge in Renaissance England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Gretchen L. Finney
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Extract

The Renaissance man was as eager as any twentieth-century scientist to understand the universe and himself, the center of that universe, but he sought that knowledge in a different way. He relied heavily upon the Word of God. He accepted with little question the words of wise men of the past—Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Boethius, St. Augustine. He was fascinated with the mysterious hieroglyphics and drawings left by the Chaldeans and Egyptians, untranslatable in his time but thought to be an esoteric language which might reveal hidden secrets of the universe. But his most accessible book was the ‘universal and publick Manuscript’ of nature, that great volume written in the language of God, sometimes in ‘Hieroglyphicall Characters’ difficult to decipher, again in figures and ‘letters’ easily understood by any one who would take time to observe them.

Type
Research Article
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Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 6 , 1959 , pp. 36 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1959

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References

1 SirBrowne, Thomas, Religio Medici, part I, sec. 16 (Works, ed. Keynes, Geoffrey, London, 1928, 1, 21)Google Scholar.

2 History of the World (London, 1614), p. 2.

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4 II.i.1-18.

5 Abraham Cowley, Davideis, i, sec. 36.

6 Mersenne, Marin, Traité de l'harmonie universelle (Paris, 1627), Theorem XIII, p. 24 Google Scholar.

7 Religio Medici, part II, sec. 9 (Works, 1,88).

8 Gradualia (1610 ed.), dedication, tr. Strunk, Oliver, Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1950), p. 328 Google Scholar.

9 Parthenia or the Maydenhead of the first musicke that ever was printed for the Virginalls (London, [1612/1613]), engraver's dedication.

10 ‘A Golden Chaine; or The description of Theologie’, The Workes of that Famous and Worthy Minister of Christ in the Uniuersitie of Cambridge, Mr. William Perkins (Cambridge, 1612), I, 38. See my article,’ “Organical Musick” and Ecstasy’, J.H.I. VIII (1947), 153-186.

11 Singing of Psalms a Gospel Ordinance (London, 1647), p. 6.

12 A Discourse of Civill Life (London, 1616), p. 147.

13 Book II, pp. 305-306.

14 See Peacham, Henry, Minerva Britanna, or a Garden of Heroical Devises (London, 1612)Google Scholar, To the Readerߣ.

15 ‘Prolegomena’, fol. A2.

16 The Worthy tract of Paulus Jovius contayning a Discourse of rare inventions, both Militarie and Amorous called Imprese Whereunto is added a Preface contayning the Arte of composing them …by Samuett Darnell (London, 1585), prefatory letter to Daniel by N. W.

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18 Whitney, Geffrey, A Choice of Emblemes, and other Devices (Leyden, 1586)Google Scholar, preface

19 The Theater of Fine Devices… by Guillaume de la Perrière… translated… by Thomas Combe (London, 1617), ‘To the Reader’.

20 The Worthy tract of Paulus Jovius, prefatory letter by N. W.

21 Andrew Marvell, ‘Upon Appleton House’, stanza LXXIII.

22 Book II, chap, xii, Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. Gregory Smith (Oxford, 1950), II, 106.

23 A New Way of Making Fowre Parts in Counter-point (1617), preface, in Campion's Works, ed. Percival Vivian (Oxford, 1909), p. 192.

24 Ars novce musicœ (1319), tr. Strunk, Source Readings, p. 175.

25 P. 6.

26 Divers & sundry waies of two parts in one, to the number of fortie, uppon one playnsong (1591), prefatory verses by Richard Wilkinson.

27 ‘Musicks Empire.’

28 ‘A Sermon preached upon Candlemas day’ (1627?), The Sermons of John Donne, ed. George R. Potter and Evelyn Simpson (Berkeley, 1953), VII, 346.

29 The Passions of the Minde (London, 1604), p. 164.

30 The Works of Thomas Adams, ed. Joseph Angus (Edinburgh, 1842), I, 337.

31 Butler, Charles, The Principles of Musik, in Singing and Setting (London, 1636), p. I.Google Scholar

32 The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney (London, 1652), The Workes in Verse and Prose of… Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, ed. Rev. Alexander B. Grosart’ (1870), IV, 139.

33 ‘At a Solemn Musick.’ For Ficino's contribution to these ideas see my article, ‘Ecstasy and Music in Seventeenth-century England’, J.H.I, VIII (1947), 273-292.

34 Sermons upon Solemne Occasions (London, 1637), p. 23.

35 Parthenia, dedication.

36 Spenser Society reprint (1884), p. 85.

37 A Collection of Emblemes (London, 1635), Book II, p. 82.

38 Plato (Symposium 186B-187C, Loeb ed., p. 127) described this reconciliation of things at variance as an affair of love. The Aristotelian Problems (XIX, 38, Loeb ed., p. 403) stated that ‘we enjoy harmony, because it is a mingling of opposites which bear a relation to each other.’ Cicero wrote (De re publico, II.xlii.69, Loeb ed., p. 183): ‘Perfect agreement and harmony is produced by the proportionate blending of unlike tones.’ Cf. Boethius, De institutione musica, Book 1, sec. ii, ed. Gottfried Friedlein (Leipzig, 1867), p. 188.

39 Ben Jonson (Cynthia's Revels, v.v, ed. Herford & Simpson, IV. 158-159) distinguished between the possible concord of contraries and the confusion of unreconcilable discords: ‘What though all concord's borne of contraries:… There is not that analogie, twixt discords, I As betweene things but meerely opposite.’

40 Feme, John, Blazon of Gentrie (London, 1586), part I, p. 41 Google Scholar. Cf. Whitney, , Emblemes, p. 194 Google Scholar. The notion of ‘inveterate hatred’ is attributed to Pliny.

41 Guillim, John, A Display of Heraldrie (London, 1610), p. 200 Google Scholar.

42 Peter de la Primaudaye, The French Academie… Newly translated into English by T. B. (London, 1586), p. 19. Cf. John Norden, Vicissitudo rerum (1600), ed. D. C. Collins (1931), st. 87:

The Heavens have their moovings contrarie,
But equally disposed, uphold the rest:
Where, if they mov'd one way, their harmonie
All of one straine, of discord dispossest,
They soone would runne to ruine al opprest… .

43 The Compleat Gentleman (London, 1634), chap, XI, p. 104.

44 A Description of the Body of Man (London, 1615), Book VIII, quest. 4, p. 699.

45 The Governour, Book I, chap, i, ed. Croft, i, 3-4; Book I, chap, vii, ed. Croft, I, 42-43.

46 l.iii.101-110.

47 Sigs. Bv and Diir.

48 Alciati's famous book of emblems (Paris, 1534, p. 26) pictures a blind man carrying a man with no legs. At his belt hangs a stringed instrument, possibly a symbol of mutual aid as well as of blindness.

49 Alciati (Paris, I534, p. 6) used a stringed instrument to illustrate the truth that the default of one prince in a treaty, just like the breaking of one ‘string’ in man's body, ruins the whole.

50 When you see me, You know me (1605), 1613 ed., sig. H2.

51 Part II, p. 41.

52 Microcosmos (1603), The Complete Works, ed. Rev. Alexander B. Grosart (1878), 1, 46. Cf. John Lyly's Euphues (The Complete Works, ed. R. Warwick Bond, Oxford, 1902, II, 147): ‘Friends must be used, as Musitians tune their strings, who finding them in a discorde, doe not breake them, but either by intention or remission, frame them to a pleasant consent.’

53 ‘Preached at Lincolns Inne Upon Trinity-Sunday. 1620’, Sermons, ed. Potter & Simpson, III, 148; ‘A Lent-Sermon Preached at White-hall, February 12, 1618’, II, 170.

54 Batman uppon Bartholome, his Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum (London, 1582), Book XIX, cap. 134, sig. ccccv.

55 See Joannes Lippius, Disputatio musica (1609-1610), Book II, and Templum Musicum: or the Musical Synopsis, of the Learned and Famous Johannes-Henricus-Alsteditds, tr. John Birchensha (London, 1664), pp. 15-16.

56 Wittkower, Rudolph, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (London, 1949, Studies of the Warburg Institute, vol. 19), pp. 90–91 Google Scholar.

57 The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (London, 1925), chap, II, sec. D, p. 50.

58 De Musica, tr. R. C. Taliaferro (Annapolis, 1939), p. 148.

59 ‘Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony’, Traditio II (1944), 432-433.

60 De institutione musica, Book 1, sec. 1-2, pp. 178-189. See Lang, Paul Henry, Music in Western Civilization (New York, 1941), p. 60 Google Scholar.

61 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive originum libri xx. Book III, sec. 23, tr. Strunk, , Source Readings, p. 99 Google Scholar; Scholia enchiriadis, tr. Strunk, pp. 134-135.

62 De artibus liberalibus, summarized by Thorndike, Lynn, A History of Magic and Experimental Science (New York, 1923), II, 445 Google Scholar.

63 Opus majus, tr. R. B. Burke (Philadelphia, 1928), 1, 198; Opus tertium, cap. LIX (Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer, London, 1859, 1, 231-232). Arabian physicians, such as Al Kindi, worked out elaborate charts to clarify the intervallic relationship between cosmic and human elements and those in music ( Farmer, H. G., The Influence of Music; From Arabic Sources, London, 1926, p. 99 Google Scholar). Avicenna, who with Galen provided medical canon for many centuries, explained in detail the relationship of musical rhythm and pulse beat. Galen, he wrote, divided pulse meters into double time, 3/4 time, common time, 4/5, and 5/6 time, and he stated his own belief that ‘for those who have sensitive touch and a keen sense of rhythm, with a training in the musical art, such minutiae of observation could be correlated in the mind’ ( Cameron Gruner, O., A Treatise on The Canon of Medicine of Avcenna, London, 1930, sec. 532, pp. 292–293 Google Scholar).

64 See Thorndike, , History of Magic (New York, 1934), III, 114 Google Scholar. Cf. the verse from Thomas Norton's Ordinall of Alchemy (1477), reprinted Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum, p. 60: ‘Joyne your Elements Musically, \ … Diapason, | With Diapente, and with Diatesseron | With their proporcions causen Harmony, | Much like proportions be in Alkimy.’

65 ‘Speculative Thinking in Medieval Music', Speculum XVII (1942), 165-180.

66 Burtt, , Metaphysicall Foundations of Science, chap, II, sec. c, pp. 41–43 Google Scholar.

67 Three Books of Occult Philosophy written by Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, Translated out of the Latin into the English Tongue, by J. F. (London, 1651), chap. XXIV, p. 255. First published 1531.

68 Book I, chaps. 1-7. The Pythagoreanism of Zarlino and the reaction against it are discussed by Palisca, Claude V. in ‘Vincenzo Galilei's Counterpoint Treatise’, Journal of the American Musicological Society IX (1956), 81–96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Ten Books on Architecture by Leone Battista Alberti Translated into Italian by Cosimo Bartoli And into English by James Leoni, Venetian Architect (1726), ed. Joseph Rykovert (London, 1955), Book IX, chap, v, p. 197. The authority here is Vitruvius, but he was less explicit than Renaissance architects in the application of musical proportions to the measurement of space. ‘Symmetry’, he wrote, ‘is the appropriate harmony arising out of the details of the work itself’ (De architectura, 1, c. ii, Loeb ed. I, 27). He regarded knowledge of music as essential in the field of architectural acoustics in the adjusting of ‘balistae, catapultae and scorpiones’ (I. c. i, Loeb ed. I, 12-13

70 Vocal Works of William Byrd, 1; tr. Boyd, Morrison Comegys, Elizabethan and Musical Criticism (Philadelphia, 1940), p. 173 Google Scholar (note).

71 Batman uppon Bartholome (1582), sig. CCCCVv

72 Blazon of Gentrie, part I, p. 50.

73 A Briefe and Short Instruction of the Art of Musicke (London, 1631), prefatory verses.

74 The Secrets of Numbers; According to Theologicall, Arithmeticall, Geometricall and Harmonicall Computations (London, 1624), p. 48.

75 Principles of Musik, pp. 12-13.

76 The Elements of Geometrie of the most auncient Philosopher Euclide of Megara … Translated by H. Billingsley (London, [1570]), sig. Biiv.

77 Utriusque cosmi… historia (1617), tract. I, lib. III, cap. iii, p. 90. The elements of water and air each spanned a whole tone, fire a halftone, making an interval of a fourth, which bounded the four elements. The distance from fire to the sun made an interval of a fifth to complete the octave. From sun to empyrean was a second octave.

78 Secrets of Numbers, pp. 85 and 94.

79 The Praise of Musicke (London, 1586) p. 44.

80 Metaphysical Foundations of Science, chap, II, sec. D, pp. 50 and 52.

81 Traité de l'harmonie universelle, Book II, Theorem VI, p. 354.

82 A Trade Containing the Artes of curious Painting … by Jo. Paul Lomatius… Englished by R[ichard] H[aydocke] (Oxford, 1598), p. 33: ‘Now the first part from the toppe of the heade to the nose, answereth to the space betwixt that, and the chinne, in a triple proportion, which maketh a Diapente and a Diapason. That betweene the chinne in a double proportion, which makes a diapason: whereunto the head answereth in the same proportion. The three faces betweene the throat pit and the privities answere to the second, betwixt them & the knee in a sesquialter proportion; whence ariseth a Diapente: but with the legge they are Unisones, for it hath the same proportion with the thigh.’ The Painting of the Ancients, in three Bookes … Written first in Latine by Franciscus Junius, F. F. And now by Englished, Him, with some additions and Alterations (London, 1638), p. 258 Google Scholar: ‘Wee see therefore, that not onely Musicians from Painters, but also contrariwise Painters from Musicians have borrowed termes of Art; and that for no other cause, but onely to shew that in both those Arts the same respect of that manifold Proportion, which consisteth in numbers, is had.’

83 Ed. London, 1904, pp. 42-43. Pythagorean influence on Sir Christopher Wren is touched upon by Sekler, Eduard F. in Wren and his Place in European Architecture (London, 1956), p. 35 Google Scholar.

84 Pp. 169-189.

85 Edward Benlowes, Theophila, st. LII; Hamlet, III.iv.140-141.

86 Harmonie universelle (Paris, 1636), ‘Livre de l'utiliité de l'harmonie’, Prop, XIX, p. 46.

87 Musurgia universalis (Rome, 1650), Book I, reg. v, p. 415.

88 A Booke of Ayres (1601), no. XXI, Works, p. 17; A New Way of Making Fowre Parts, ibid., p. 195; ibid., dedication, p. 191.

89 See Hughes, Charles W., ‘Rhythm and Health’, Music and Medicine, ed. Schullian, Dorothy M. and Schoen, Max (New York, 1948), pp. 158 ffGoogle Scholar.

90 The Arte of English Poesie (Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. Gregory Smith, II, 88 and 67).

91 ‘Observations in the Art of English Poesie’, ibid., 328-329 and 334-335; Works, pp. 35 and 39-40.

92 ‘A Defence of Rhyme’ (?1603), Elizabethan Critical Essays, II, 360.

93 Peacham, Henry, The Compleat Gentleman, p. 98 Google Scholar.

94 ‘We see', wrote Francis Bacon, ‘that tunes and airs even in their own nature, have some affinity with the affections; as there are merry tunes, doleful tunes, solemn tunes, tunes inclining to pity, warlike tunes, &c.’ (Sylva Sylvarum, Century II, sec. 114, The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, New York, 1869, IV, 231). Because ‘affections’ were revealed in musical inflection, music had been, since Cicero and Quintilian, a model for the orator. According to Cicero, ‘the tones of the voice are keyed up like the strings of an instrument, so as to answer every touch… . For one kind of tone must be taken by anger … another belongs to fear’ (De Oratore, III.lvii.215-218, Loeb ed., pp. 173 ff.). Quintilian was even more explicit about ‘the advantages which our future orator may reasonably expect to derive from the study of Music’ (Institutio Oratoria, I.x. 22 ff., Loeb ed. 1,171 ff.). Cf. Roger Ascham, Toxophilus (1545) (English Works, ed. William Aldis Wright, Cambridge, 1904, p. 15).

95 Sigs. H-H2.

96 II.i.12-14.

97 II.i.195-199; v.v.42-50.

98 ‘How soon hath Time the suttle theef of youth’, 9-12.

99 The Secrets of Numbers, p. 8.

100 De augmentis scientiarum, Book III, chap, i, Works, VIII, 472-447.

101 P. 204.

102 A Collection of Emblemes, Book II, p. 82. John Lyly used the same image in his Euphues (Works, II, 151): ‘In Musicke there are many discords, before there can be framed a Diapason, and in contracting of good will, many jarres before there be established a friendship, but by these meanes, the Musicke is more sweet, and the amitie more sound.’

103 Psalmes, Songs, and Sonnets, ‘To all true lovers of Musicke'.

104 See my article, ‘A World of Instruments’, ELH XX (1953), 87-120.

105 pp. 140-141.

106 The Nature of Man. A learned and usefull Tract written in Greek by Nemesius … Englished … by Ceo: Wither (London, 1636), p. 126.

107 ‘Angels Acclamations', Complete Works, ed. A. B. Grosart (Edinburgh, 1862), VI, 331.

108 Minerva Britanna, p. 45. A verse in Thomas Jenner's book of emblems (The Soules Solace [London, 1631], p. 27) describes man tuned by God's minister, and concludes with the moral: ‘As Instruments, unless in tune, are slighted: So men, except new made, ne're God delighted.’

109 The Poems of John Donne, ed. Sir Herbert Grierson (Oxford, 1949), p. 336.

110 P. 92. The same proof that industry corrects nature appears in the emblems of Joannes Sambucus [1564] (Les Emblemes de Signeurjehan Sambucus, Anvers, 1567, p. 61).

111 Perrière, Theater of Fine Devices, Embleme XXXIIII.

112 ‘Inough's as good as a feast’, Wittes Pilgrimage, p. 53 (Works, ed. Grosart, 11).

113 ‘Epithalamion made at Lincolnes Inne’, 63-66, Poems, ed. Grierson, pp. 127-128.

114 Timon of Athens, i.ii. 100 ff.

115 III.ii.365 ff.

116 Treatie of Humane Learning’, St. III (Poems and Dramas, ed. Bullough, 1,181).

117 Henry Vaughan, ‘The World’. In emblem books Hercules was portrayed choosing between Virtue, holding a book, and Vice, with mask and lute. A lady balanced precariously on a ball, reaching for scepter and fiddle bow, represented one caught by trivialities. See Rollenhagen, Gabriel, Nucleus emblematum (1611), pp. 7 Google Scholar and 14. Wither used Rollenhagen's plates and drew similar morals.

118 Lyly, Campaspe, v.i, Works, II, 350; William Austin, prefatory verse to Thomas Ravenscroft, A Briefe Discourse.

119 A study of these changing attitudes is the subject of an article in preparation.

120 Glanvill, Joseph, Scepsis Scientifica: or, Confest Ignorance, the Way to Science … (London, 1665)Google Scholar, prefatory address.

121 Sir Thomas Elyot, The Govemour, ed. Croft, 1,3.