Music as Divine Order

Written in the fourth century by the Roman author Macrobius, this commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio became one of the most widely cited books of the middle ages. Its discussion of the musical philosophy of Ptolemy, Plato, and Pythagoras played an essential role in securing the idea of universal harmony a central position in medieval and Humanist education and thought. In the Dream, Cicero (106-43 BC) presents an imagined ‘high place full of stars, shining and splendid’ from which his main protagonist, Scipio Aemilianus, looks down on the city of Carthage. Scipio sees that the universe is made up of nine celestial spheres. The Earth is the innermost, whereas the highest is heaven. In between lie the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (which proceed from lowest to highest). As he stares in wonder at the universe, Scipio Aemilianus begins to hear a ‘loud and agreeable’ sound. Scipio’s grandfather (Scipio Africanus) identifies this as the ‘music of the spheres’. According to Macrobius, this harmony resulted from the arrangement of the heavenly bodies according to Pythagorean harmonic ratios. This much-read late sixteenth-century edition by the famous French printer Henri Estienne (1531-98) was given to the college by Queens’ president, Henry James (d.1717).

Author: Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius
Title: Commentarii in somnium Scipionis [Commentary on the dream of Scipio] (Paris, 1585)
Shelfmark: D.20.64
Provenance: Henry James, President of Queens' College (1675-1717)

D.20.64