Description
MUSURGIA UNIVERSALIS SIVE ARS MAGNA CONSONI ET DISSONI IN X LIBROS DIGESTA…
Rome, Ex Typographia Haeredum Francisci Corbeletti, 1650
2 volumes in folio, pp. (20), 690; (2), 462, (38). Engraved frontispiece, portrait of archduke Leopold, both after J.P. Schor, and 21 plates numbered to 23, 4 folding. Numerous woodcut illustrations, three full-page. Errata leaf at end of vol. II. Contemporary stiff vellum with label on spine (tear to vol. I head spine).
Comments:
FIRST EDITION of Kircher’s encyclopedia of music, written at the time of transition from the old Renaissance polyphony to the new baroque style, and discussing inventions of his own such as the talking statue, the megaphone, and numerous mechanical music-makers, including the arca musarithmica or composing computer. Kircher published more than 40 works during his life in extremely diverse fields such as geology, medicine, optics, natural philosophy and music. Musurgia Universalis is a combination of a scholarly study of the history of music and musical instruments and an attempt at a scientific explanation of musical harmony and sound theory. Kircher also theorized that the harmony of music reflected the divine proportions of the Universe (as embodied in the plate Harmonia Nascentis Mundi).
