Opus arcanis Musis creditum: Approaching Astrological Sources in Germanicus’ Fragments (original) (raw)

Music in medieval and renaissance astrological imagery

1997

Medieval Western astrology and mythology were not direct extensions of antiquity. Rather, with their roots in Eastern sources, they were newly created concepts based both on the Western literary tradition and Eastern iconography. One of the central astrological treatises in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was the by the Arabic astronomer Abū Ma`šar Ga`far ben Muhammad ben ‛Umar al-Balhi (787-886), which was translated into Latin by Hermann of Dalmatia between 1140 and 1143. Two fragments from this translation were illustrated in the late 12th or early 13th c. by Georgius Zothorus Zaparus Fendulus, and six copies of this illustrated abridgment, produced between 1220 and ca. 1500, are preserved: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MSS lat.7330, lat.7331, lat.7344, and Smith-Lesouëf 8; the British Library, Sloane 3983; and the Pierpont Morgan Library, M.785. The first part of Fendulus's abridgment illustrates Abū Ma`šar's description of the three astrological systems related to the zodiacal signs: the Ptolemy's firmament (); the Indian system of decans outlined by Varahamihira in his <Brihatjātaka> (); and the 1st c. system by Teukros (). The second part of the abridgment outlines planetary influences. An association with music has been traced in the four Indian decans, in the of Hercules, Amphion, Satyr, Idol, Musa, and Bridemif in the , and the constellation of Perseus in the . A total of 148 instruments (harp, harp-psaltery, rectangular psaltery, delta psaltery, lute, hurdy-gurdy, fiddel, rabel, mandora, rebec, pipe, shawm, pipe and tabor, trumpet, tambourine, kettle drum, and cymbals) depicted in the six manuscripts provides, on one level, organological evidence about their development, technical characteristics, and variants in regions where the manuscripts were produced (southern Italy, the Low Countries, Paris), performance practices, and Latin terminology. On the other level, the instrument depictions demonstrate how music symbolism was transmitted in the three zodiacal systems from antiquity to Indian and Arabic astrology. From there, it was received in the West and developed until the end of the Renaissance. Regarding planetary astrology, Venus and Mercury were already associated with music in the Arabic iconography. This tradition was received in the West and developed by, among others, Fendulus and Michael Scotus. It then became a springboard for artistic genres such as the planet's children, garden of love, and occupations of months.