The Obscure Influence Of The Occult In Renaissance Music And It’s Unexpected Consequences

Taylor Morgeson

Occult philosophy has influenced mankind since time immemorial and music in the

Renaissance is no exception. This paper explore how occult philosophy affected musical thought

intentionally and unintentionally. This will be done by defining the occult and determining it’s

origins followed by a brief discussion of two influential figures, Marsillio Ficino and Marin

Mersenne, and concluded with evidence of manifestations of the occult into musical practice.

The Occult and Its Origins

The word occult originates from late fifteenth century Latin verb occultare, or ‘secrete,’

based on celare ‘to hide’.1 Although, no etymology sources discussed the prefix ‘Oc’, it is clear

that occult implies being hidden from the eyes. The occult has also taken on many meanings but

primarily indicates anything involving mysticism, magic, spiritualism, and demonology outside

of the Western churches and from any given culture or age. For the purposes of this paper the

occult shall refer to esoteric practices known as alchemy, astrology, and cabala.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact origins of occult practices but it can be said that

Astrology grew out of necessity. The heavens, as it were, told man when to plant, when to

harvest, and acted like a calendar. This eventually evolved into several different of divination,

many of which are still popular today. Astrology was also a fundamental component of the 7

Liberal Arts and the Quadrivium.

Alchemy derives its name from the Arabic alkīmiyā, which in turn comes from the Greek

word khēmia, or the “art of transmuting metals”.2 Modern esoteric circles speculate alchemy’s

1 Oxford Dictionaries.com, “Occult”, <http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/occult?region=us&q=Occult>

2 Oxford Dictionaries.com, “Alchemy”, <http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/alchemy?region=us&q=Alchemy>

origin is ancient Egypt. During the dynastic ages Egypt was known as ‘Km.t’ or Kemet, meaning

black in reference to the fertile lands surrounding the Nile.3

Cabala is a form of Jewish Mysticism that has spurious origins but there is evidence of it

in southern France and Spain from the 12th century onward. Cabalists would consider the origin

to pre-date world religions. There is also speculation that after the biblical Nebuchadnezzer

sacked Jerusalem in 586 B.C. he took the Israelites into captivity and this is where they absorbed

Babylonian mysteries into their culture.

Marsilio Ficino

Marsilio Ficino (October 19, 1433 – October 1, 1499) was one of the most influential and

widely read Humanist philosophers during the Renaissance. His work impacted the direction

and development of philosophy throughout Europe due to his numerous commentaries written

while translating on the Classics. Ficino founded the Florentine Academy which attempted to

revive Plato's school and the Liberal Arts. Ficino is also known for his translation of the Corpus

Hermeticum by Hermes Tresmigistus. Hermes is, for all intents and purposes, the father of

alchemical hermeticism. As much influence as this text would have it was relatively short-lived

after Isaac Casaubon, around the year 1600, successfully argued that the philosophy used too

recent a vocabulary claiming that Hellenisms in the language itself pointed to a 2nd century AD

Greek origin.4

Ficino was also influential in other ways. In Ficino’s Three Books on Life, he talks about

the and the power of music. If used irresponsibly music had the power to corrupt just in the

same way that if used responsibly it could foster positive cultural development throughout a

3 Wikipedia, “Kemet”, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Km_(hieroglyph)>

4 Marsilio Ficino, De triplici vita, trans. with intro. and notes by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Tempe (Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & and Studies, 1998).

man’s life.5 This type of idea, that a man could be influenced in a number of ways, was brought

to light by Ficino and other philosophers and it’s influence can be seen in theorists and

composers as early as Tinctoris who documents and discusses the effects of instrumental music

on the human spirit.6

Ficino’s work was also influential on well known occultists such as Cornelius Agrippa,

Giordano Bruno, and Robert Fludd.7 Robert Fludd in particular was extremely influenced by

Ficino’s translation of the Corpus Hermeticum as well as his commentaries. According to

Frances Yates, “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that on nearly every page of Fludd’s woks

there will be found a quotation from Ficino’s Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum.8

Mersenne: Unexpected Consequences

Marin Mersenne (1588 September. 8 – September. 1, 1648) began his studies in 1604 at

Le Mans and then Jesuit school at La Flèche. He trained in logic, physics, metaphysics,

mathematics and theology. He went Paris in 1609 to complete his studies at the Collège Royal

and the Sorbonne. 1611 he joined the Order of Minims, beginning his novitiate at the monastery

at Nigeon, near Paris, and completing it at St Pierre de Fublaines, near Meaux. He received holy

orders on 17 July 1612; served the Minim monastery in the Place Royale, Paris, named deacon

and priest; joined Franciscan Order of Friars Minor in 1613.1614, sent to the monastery near

Nevers as teacher of philosophy (1615–17) and theology (1618), after which he was designated

5 Aristides Quintilianus, Peri mousikes, trans. with introduction, commentary, and annotations by Thomas J. Mathiesen (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1983).

6 Johannes Tinctoris, Complexuus effectuum musices.

7 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Cornelius Agrippa” <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agrippa-nettesheim/#DeOccPhiRefMag>

8 Frances Amelia Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition Volume 2, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1964; reprinted Great Britain, 1971) p. 404.

corrector. In 1619 he returned to Paris as conventual of the order and remained there devoting

himself to mathematics and music until his death in l648.9

Mersenne is primarily remembered for his work with mathematics and music. Along

with Galileo Galilei, Mersenne helped bring about modern acoustical processes which

progressed quickly during and after the Scientific Revolution. Formulation of the so-called

Mersenne's laws concerning the vibrations of stretched strings. This is in book three of the

L’harmonie Universelle (1637), where he states that frequency is...

a) Inverse proportional to the length of the string.

b) Proportional to the square root of the stretching force, and

c) Inverse proportional to the square root of the density.

d) Formula for the lowest frequency is where f is the frequency, L is the length, T is the

force and ρ is the density.

It seems that there is another reason that Mersenne decided to develop acoustics.

Mersenne’s first publication was Quaestiones Celeberrimae in Genesim (1623). This was

as a commentary on the book of Genesis as well as a critique of a number of current ideas

challenging religion. In the work he included thirty-five "proofs" of the existence of God as an

argument against atheism. In the section titled Observationes, he discredits hermetic and

magical accounts of natural phenomena and rejected the idea of an alchemical creation of life.

Mersenne was not opposed to alchemy as evidenced in his second book of Traite L’harmonie

Universelle(1628), but he felt it had no place in theology.

Mersenne eventually goes as far as to accuse Robert Fludd and Cornelius Agrippa of

witchcraft. An argument between Mersenne and Fludd went on for severals years as can be seen

9 John B. Egan, Marin Mersenne, Traité de L‘harmonie universelle: Critical translation of the 2nd Book. (Ph.D Dissertation. Indiana University, 1962).

in book two of Mersenne’s Traité L’harmonie Universelle(1628). The most important point is

that Mersenne seems to have developed acoustics in order to disprove the occult. Mersenne’s

major contribution marks a major paradigm shift in the thought of science and the role the

pseudosciences of the occult. It is interesting to think that had not been for the occult

philosophies so popular at the time, Mersenne may have never come up with the modern

equation for Frequency.

The Occult in Music: Tetragrammaton and Renaissance time signatures

Research into the topic of the occult in Renaissance has led to the discovery of something

interesting and which has no scholarly explanation as of now. In this author’s experience the

tetragrammaton, 4 hebrew letters H-W-H-J, is something that shows up on all Alchemical

treatises often decorated with ornate engravings or woodcuts. See example 1.

Ex. 1, Hebrew characters H-W-H-J or Yahweh.

Example 2 shows Agrippa’s use of the tetragrammaton with the pentagram and Adam.

Ex. 2, “Man inscribed in a pentagram”, from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Libri tres de occulta philosophia.

The tetragrammaton shows up often on the front cover of musical treatises from the Renaissance.

See Example 3.

Ex. 3, Michael Praetorious’s Theatrum Instrumentorum. (Tetragrammaton encircle).

The tetragrammaton also appears in several alchemical and hermetic engravings. One of the

most famous is that of the polarities in the macrocosm and the microcosm, from Daniel Mylius.

See example 2.

Ex. 2, Daniel Mylius’s large engraving from the Opus medico-chymicum (1618).

In the course of my research I came across one puzzling picture from Frances Mousard. See

Example 3.

Ex. 3, Engraving of Mercurius Trismegistus from Pierre Mussard, Historia Deorum fatidicorum, Venice, 1675.

Qua-ci lovEfis jcnitu$ majno, vu cnthea mmtis

^'^mnce, t^ co-elt cd^fdtio alta yrahair.

In place of the tetragrammaton Moussard has put the symbols associated with renaissance

mensural time signatures. Example 4 shows these signatures and their modern equivalents

Ex. 4, mensural time signatures with their respective gender and astrological associations.

=9/8 =3/4

=6/8 =2/4

Summary

To what degree occult philosophy has actually influenced music throughout the

Renaissance would require a significant amount of research but this paper shows that such a

study is warranted. This paper has also shown that two important figures in the the renaissance

were deeply affected by the occult, albeit on completely opposite sides of the spectrum. It is

interesting to find, however, that the Renaissance begins with Ficino and his teaching which

became extremely important to occultists like Robert Fludd. Then with Mersenne, a man whose

teachings and discoveries helped bring an end to the renaissance and effectively quashed the

prevailing wisdom of Pseudoscience.

masculine

masculine

feminine

feminine moon

sunsun masculine

moon feminine

Bibliography

Agrippa, Cornelius. Libri tres de occulta philosophia. 1530

Egan, John B. Marin Mersenne, Traité de L‘harmonie universelle: Critical translation of the 2nd Book. Ph.D Dissertation. Indiana University, 1962.

Ficino, Marsilio. De triplici vita (Three books on life). Translated with introduction and notes by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Tempe, Arizona: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & and Studies, 1998.

Mersenne, Marin. Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim. (1623)

Quintilianus, Aristides. Peri mousikes (On music, in three books). Translation with introduction, commentary, and annotations by Thomas J. Mathiesen. New Haven; London. Yale University Press, 1983.

Powers, W. D. Spiritual and Demonic Magic. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 2000.

Tinctoris, Johannes, Complexuus effectuum musices.

Tomlinson, Gary. Music in Renaissance Magic: Toward a Historiography of Others. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2002 (first printed in 1993).