Prins Jacomien.Vanhaelen Maude. - Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres

Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres

This is the first volume to explore the reception of the Pythagorean Doctrine of cosmic harmony within a variety of contexts, ranging chronologically from Plato to eighteenth-century England. This original collection of essays engages with contemporary debates concerning the relationship between music, philosophy, and science, and challenges the view that Renaissance discussions on cosmic harmony are either mere repetitions of ancient music theory or pre-figurations of the Scientific Revolution. Utilizing this interdisciplinary approach, Sing Aloud Harmonious Spheres: Renaissance Conceptions of Cosmic Harmony offers a new perspective on the reception of an important classical theme in various cultural, sequential, and geographical contexts, underlying the continuities and changes between Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. This project will be of particular interest within these emerging disciplines as they continue to explore the ideological significance of the various ways in which we appropriate the past.

Jacomien Prins is a Global Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) and the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance (CSR) of the University of Warwick. She has worked extensively on the interaction between music theory and philosophy in the Renaissance. Her work includes Harmonisch labyrint (2007), Echoes of an Invisible World: Marsilio Ficino and Francesco Patrizi on Cosmic Order and Music Theory (2014) and Marsilio Ficino: Commentary on the Timaeus (forthcoming).

Maude Vanhaelen is Associate Professor in the Departments of Classics and Italian at the University of Warwick. She has published articles on the reception of Platonism in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy. She is the author of Marsilio Ficino: Commentary on the Parmenides (2012).

Warwick Studies in the Humanities
Series editor: Karen OBrien, Loredana Polezzi and Samantha Haigh
University of Warwick, UK

The Humanities Research Centre of the University of Warwick in collaboration with Routledge has relaunched its book series. Warwick Studies in the Humanities aims to bring together innovative work of a high academic standard which crosses disciplinary borders in the arts and humanities. It provides a forum for volumes exploring new dimensions of cultural history from the early modern period to the present, and for works that investigate aspects of contemporary cultural production within and across national boundaries. The series reflects the breadth of the interdisciplinary work carried out at Warwicks Humanities Research Centre, and includes work of both European and extra European scope.

Series Advisory Board:

Susan Bassnett, University of Warwick, UK
David Bradshaw, Worcester College, University of Oxford, UK
Chris Clark, University of Connecticut, USA
Stuart Clark, Swansea University, UK
Richard Dyer, Kings College London, UK
Jo Labanyi, New York University, USA
Carolyn Steedman, University of Warwick, UK

First published 2018
by Routledge
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2018 Taylor & Francis

The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Prins, Jacomien. | Vanhaelen, Maude.
Title: Sing aloud harmonious spheres: Renaissance conceptions of cosmic harmony / edited by Jacomien Prins and Maude Vanhaelen.
Description: New York: Routledge, 2017. | Series: Warwick series in the humanities | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017888 (print) | LCCN 2017028215 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: MusicPhilosophy and aesthetics. | PythagorasInfluence. | Harmony of the spheres. | Philosophy, Renaissance.
Classification: LCC ML3800 (ebook) | LCC ML3800 .S57 2017 (print) | DDC 113dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017888

ISBN: 978-1-138-06346-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-16103-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
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This book grew out of the international conference Sing aloud Harmonious Spheres: Music, Philosophy and the Order of the Universe in the Renaissance organized at the University of Warwicks Palazzo Papafava in Venice in May 2011. The conference was made possible thanks to generous support of the Roberts Fund, Warwicks Humanities Research Fund, as well as the Departments of Classics and Italian, and Wolfson College, Oxford. We would also like to thank Chiara Croff, the administrator of Warwicks Palazzo Papafava for her invaluable help before and during the conference.

During the publication of the conference proceedings, the University of Warwicks Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) generously provided funding to cover expenses related to editorial work and proofreading. We are grateful to Aileen Das and Penelope Gouk, whose diligent and dedicated proofreading did much to make the writing clearer. We claim sole responsibility for any remaining flaws and errors.

Jacomien Prins and Maude Vanhaelen

Jacomien Prins and Maude Vanhaelen

The present volume aims to explore the Renaissance reception history of the Pythagorean doctrine of world harmony. Its title is inspired by the anonymous song Sing aloud harmonious spheres, which expresses a desire to discover the hidden music of the planetary spheres:

Sing aloud, harmonious spheres;
Let your concord pierce Joves ears;
Play your old lessons over again;
Keep time in every strain.
For now the gods do listen to your lays,
As they are passing,
Over the Milky Ways.

Scorch not fire, nor freeze thou, air,
Whilst your deities be there;
Hence, you clouds and airy meteors,
Fogs and such unwholesome creatures.
Keep all your regions pure, all passage fair,
Now, ye blest spirits,
Wander in the air.

Sweetly, sweetly, lovely mirth
Kiss the bosom of the earth;
Make them garlands of the spring,
Send for all the birds to sing.
The gods approach; I hear their fluttering sound,
And now, now, now,
They touch the ground.

In a playful way the song expresses a tension, typical in the seventeenth century in Western Europe, between the fascination for the ancient doctrine of the harmony of the spheres and the growing realization that it was no longer an adequate model to describe the physical universe. The planetary deities, or Sirens, who in Platos myth of Er (Republic, 617b47) sit singing on the planetary orbits, are called upon in this song to sing aloud their harmonious sound. Yet, when the prayer is answered and the gods approach, nothing more than a fluttering sound is heard. As soon as the heavenly harmonious sound touches the ground mortal beings are unable to hear, recognize or understand it. Though the Renaissance is a period of rediscovery of lost ancient knowledge, the very essence of the doctrine of the harmony of the spheres continues to be perceived as hidden from the senses, leading to extraordinary and innovative restatements, transformations and adaptations, which form the core of this book.