Musical Sympathy and Occult Knowledge
Read MoreMusic played an essential part in this treatise on Hebrew accentuation and spelling published by the German-born Catholic humanist Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522). He was one of those who inspired Athanasius Kircher and other seventeenth-century music theorists in their quest to discover the hidden forces underlying the operation of universal harmony. Reuchlin’s synthesis of magic and religion as the means to explore nature was stimulated by his disaffection with medieval philosophy, which he believed to be outworn. In its place he had promoted a Christianised form of the Kabbala, an ancient Jewish mystical cult rooted in Hebrew scriptures. As the language in which God had spoken to man, Hebrew was essential to Reuchlin’s search for new spiritual depths and hidden meanings in the scriptures. It was partly with this in mind that Reuchlin and other Christian humanists became interested in Jewish chant as sung in synagogues. In it they hoped to establish an authentic link with practices adopted by early Christians for whom, they argued, correct accentuation of Hebrew had played an essential part in worship.
This page displays the printer's device of Thomas Anshelm.
Johann Reuchlin
Title: De accentibus et orthographia linguae Hebraicae [On the accentuation and spelling of Hebrew] (Haguenau, 1618)
Shelfmark: K.14.13
Provenance: Formerly owned by N. Cartwright
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