ABSTRACT
Of all the musical conceptions handed down from the ancient Mediterranean world, two more than any others have captivated European minds: the ideas of music's ethical power to affect man's soul and of the presence of harmony in the cosmos. Both ideas are venerable, of course. Already in the fourth century Plato attested them in terms developed enough to suggest that each had a considerable pre-Platonic history. From Plato's time to Ptolemy's a shift is apparent from a simple affirmation of the harmonic numbers manifested in the cosmos to an acceptance of these and a detailing of the precise musical features of the planetary spheres. The chapter focuses on the work of the following writers: the music theorists Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareia and Franchino Gafori, the philosopher, doctor, and musician Marsilio Ficino, and the magician and philosopher Henry Cornelius Agrippa.
