ABSTRACT
The problem of choosing the sounds to make music with, therefore, was the problem of selecting the right numbers to generate pleasant musical sequences, the consonances. The greater complexity of the consonance/dissonance relationship led to a questioning of the other premise of Pythagorean musical arithmetic: the search for the perfect system of intonation based on rational numbers. The Renaissance discovery of the ancient Greek and Latin musical sources dramatized the problem of intonation. The idealization of music is mirrored in the idealization of the musician within the tradition of speculative music. In the Renaissance, changes in musical language and the rediscovery of Greek and Latin musical sources are the ground for the rebirth and metamorphosis of the Boethian musicus. The science of the 'sounding number' begins with the discovery of consonances in the blacksmith's workshop of the 6th century in the pagan age.
