296 Notes to pages 97–114
- Descartes 1996 , 1:142; cf. Pirro (1973), who judged Descartes to be “ held back by ignorance of [musical]
practice, ” uncertain in his musical judgments. - Descartes 1996 , 1:223 – 224.
- Descartes 1979 , 1 – 7. Augst (1965, 120) describes the Compendium as giving “ the first in a series of geo-
metrical models leading to the design of the cosmic machine ” in Le Monde. - Gaukroger 2000 , 1995 , 234 – 237.
- Descartes 1996 , 1:270 – 271.
- For his later presentation of the arguments against the void, see Descartes 1983 , 46 – 49.
- Walker 1978 , 81 – 110, at 102; cf. Pirro 1973 , 100 – 120, which is more critical of Descartes ’ s musical
discernment. - For Kepler on the infinite universe, see Koyr é 1957, 58 – 87; Harrison 1987, 46 – 49; Heller-Roazen 2011,
131 – 140.
7 Mersenne ’ s Universal Harmony - Beaulieu 1995 , 87.
- Quoted in Beaulieu 1995 , 25.
- For the larger context of the Republic of Letters, see Grafton 1991 and Bots and Waquet 1997. For treatments
of Mersenne, see Cohen 1984 , 97 – 114, 191 – 201; Gouk 1999 , 170 – 178; Dear 1988. For his role as intelligencer,
see Grosslight 2013. - Beaulieu 1995 , 173 – 185; for the development of the Acad é mie, see Brown 1967; Cohen 1981, 3 – 5.
- Mersenne 1623, question 9, article 1, column 869. See Hine 1973; Lewis 2006, 113 – 140.
- Egan 1962 , 63 – 64, 70.
- Ibid. , 94.
- Ibid., 103.
- Ibid. , 105 – 107. Mersenne consistently capitalizes Soleil , which I have followed only when he refers to God.
- Quoted in Beaulieu 1995 , 256 – 257.
- Egan 1962 , 154.
- Ibid. , 202.
- For the French reaction to Galileo, see Lewis 2006. In 1634, Mersenne published his own description of
Galileo ’ s mechanical propositions, Les m é chaniques de Galil é e , and even planned writing a defense of Galileo,
though he later gave this up. - Beaulieu 1995 , 103 – 104.
- On the musicality of sloths, see Clark and Rehding 2001 , 2 – 4.
- He cites Psalms 83:8. Mersenne includes a concluding “ Livre de l ’ utilit é de l ’ harmonie ” as a kind of appendix
to the whole work; see Mersenne 1963 , vol. 3 (following the “ Livre des instrumens de percussion ” ). - Mersenne 1963 , 2:103, 107.
- Ibid. , 1:169. Note that he uses French feet (0.325 m = 12.8 in).
- Mersenne 1963 , 3:208; Mersenne had read Vincenzo Galilei ’ s experiments relating string pitch to the square
root of the tension. - Regarding the accuracy of this determination, see Dostrovsky 1975 , 197 – 198.
- Mersenne 1963 , 3:251 – 252.
- Sauveur 1987 ; Maxham 1976.
- Mersenne 1963 , 3:209.
- Ibid. , 1:213.
- Ibid. , 3:211.