Marin Mersenne and the Study of Harmony

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 (15881648). Although now considered more an art than a science, music was for many early modern scholars a universal science for studying the harmonies present in all beings. Musics ability to be quantified while being experienced aesthetically meant that, for Mersenne, it was the central science to approximate the sounding and inaudible harmonies present in the world and universe at large. Bringing together Mersennes interests in the physics of sound and hearing, combinatorics, musical instruments, curiosities, and music from outside of Europe, this book shows why so many early modern scholars were drawn to music and how the discipline of music was transformed in the seventeenth century.