Magic enjoyed a vigorous revival in sixteenth-century Europe, attaining a prestige lost for over a millennium and becoming, for some, a kind of universal philosophy. Renaissance music also suggested a form of universal knowledge through renewed interest in two ancient themes: the Pythagorean and Platonic "harmony of the celestial spheres" and the legendary effects of the music of bards like Orpheus, Arion, and David. In this climate, Renaissance philosophers drew many new and provocative connections between music and the occult sciences. In Music in Renaissance Magic, Gary Tomlinson describes some of these connections and offers a fresh view of the development of early modern thought in Italy. Raising issues essential to postmodern historiography--issues of cultural distance and our relationship to the others who inhabit our constructions of the past --Tomlinson provides a rich store of ideas for students of early modern culture, for musicologists, and for historians of philosophy, science, and religion.
- ISBN10 0226807924
- ISBN13 9780226807928
- Publish Date 15 November 1994 (first published 15 January 1993)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Chicago Press
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 308
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9780226807928