1. THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
LA MUSIQUE DES SPHERES
de Pythagore à Voyager II
THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
from Pythagoras to Voyager-II
(Observatoire de Meudon, France)
Dominique Proust

3. Franchino Gaffurio:
Pitagora, disegno da
Theorica Musicae.
(1492)

5. Music of the Spheres (Salzburg, ~ 820 A.D.)

7. Boèce (480-524), De Institutione Musica

9. Hildegarde von Bingen (1098-1179) Scivias: vision of the cosmos.

10. Nicolas Oresme (1320-1382) , Book of the Sky and the World, 1377.

11. The tree of the science
The Trivium is represented with dialectic, grammar and rethoric, then the Quadrivium with Geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy.

12. XIIth century Hymn: Naturalis Concordia Vocum Cum Planetis.

13. Practica musicae (Franchini Gaffurio, 1451-1522).
Directly inspired from
Martanus Capella (470)
and the neoplatonician
School.
8 spheres are associated
to 8 of the muses (Thalie,
muse of the comedy is
not included.

14. The system of Ptolemee (Harmponia Macroscomica, Andreas Cellarius, 1667)

15. The system of Copernic (Harmonia Macroscomica, Andreas Cellarius 1667)

16. Tian Tan: The Temple of the
Celestial Harmony (1420)
(Beijing)
Tian Tan: Le Temple de
l’Harmonie Céleste (1420)
(Pékin)

19. Kepler’s musical themes for each planet (Harmonices Mundi, 1619).

20. Le cosmos du XVIIe siècle est ordonné suivant une hiérarchie

22. Traité de l’eau de vie (Jean Brouaut, 1646)
Hermès Trismégiste is represented holding the sphere of the world in his right hand while the left one is holding a distillator.
The seven organ pipes represent the seven planets (including the Moon).

23. Robert Fludd’s Divine Monochord (Utriusque cosmi, Francfort, 1617)

24. Athanase Kircher Musurgia Universalis, 1650
God is the builder of an organ which represents the world. The 6 stops correspond to the 6 days of the creation.

26. L’Harmonie Universelle, 1636
Marin Mersenne,
L’Harmonie Universelle, 1636
The three-strings instrument used by Marin Mersenne to study the relationship between the length of the string and the tune.

30. One of the telescopes built by William Herschel

34. n
D = (0.3  2 )
Bode’s law

38. Regulated air blowing pump constructed by the organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll for Léon Foucault’s light velocity experiments at Paris Observatory.

41. Voyager spacecraft

45. The accoustic waves

48. to be followed...