Musical Imagination, Melancholy and Gout in the Philosophy of Girolamo Cardano

Authors

  • Jacomien Prins University of Warwick

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/rm.v14i1.114586

Keywords:

Girolamo Cardano, musica humana, music and medicine

Abstract

Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576) has still not attracted the scholarly attention he deserves for his theory about the coincidence of music, medicine and mathematics. As a music theorist and medical practitioner Cardano often focuses on phenomena which he takes to be the most subtle and hard to understand. Among these phenomena we find the Platonic doctrine that music has the power to influence the human body and soul. This paper explores Cardano’s interpretation of this specific doctrine by looking at his reception of Galenic medicine, the tradition of musica humana, and especially Marsilio Ficino’s theory of musical magic. Moreover, it deals with Julius Caesar Scaliger’s (1484–1558) criticism of Cardano’s conception of the relationship between music and the soul. I will argue that whatever their differences of opinion, Ficino, Cardano and Scaliger belong to the same universe of discourse, whose contours can be understood through the analysis of their polemic.

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References

Fontes Primárias

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Published

2014-05-10

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Prins, J. (2014). Musical Imagination, Melancholy and Gout in the Philosophy of Girolamo Cardano. Revista Música, 14(1), 41-59. https://doi.org/10.11606/rm.v14i1.114586