Music and the Making of Modern Science

106 Chapter 7

AB

motets in order to dedicate them to the great Sun, which is immobile and more truly moves

all creatures at will than the sun moves the planets. ”^9

By contrast, his account of Fludd ’ s arguments shows that Mersenne ’ s devotion to cosmic

harmony is tempered by his requirement of precise observation and principled argument.

In some respects, Mersenne ’ s penchant for numerology resembles Fludd ’ s mystical numer-

ation of the cosmos. Even in his later Harmonie Universelle , Mersenne included his own

version of one of Fludd ’ s famous images, the cosmos as a monochord tuned by the hand

of God, “ the divine Orpheus ” ( figure 7.1 ); even though he criticizes and finally rejects

Fludd, Mersenne shares his fundamental premise of cosmic harmony. Mersenne presents

a rather detailed account of Fludd ’ s Neoplatonic cosmology, including a summary of his

numerological design, which relies on such traditional identifications as between the

Figure 7.1

(a) Robert Fludd ’ s image of the cosmic monochord from his Utriusque cosmi ... historia (Oppenheim, 1617).

(b) Mersenne ’ s similar image of “ universal harmony ” from the appended section “ On the Utility of Harmony ”

from his Harmonie Universelle.