ABSTRACT
In Chapter 12, Bella Brover-Lubovsky deals with Francesco Algarotti’s synaesthetic theories of light and pitch. Her contribution exposes how Algarotti’s ideal of the unity of Nature, which reveals its universal laws in various ways in natural sciences and culture is pivotal for eighteenth-century writings on music and for music theory that deals with pitch and tonal-harmonic systems. The author approaches these theories as a coalescence of theoretical observation, practical knowledge, and emotional experience, showing how they mirror the all-embracing impact of the new scientific paradigms on music. The synthesis proposed thus offers hints of an ontology of music resonant with that of certain learned cultures of eighteenth-century Europe in a coherent fashion to the present-day reader’s mind, and it demonstrates the sort of criticism and contextual assessment that John Walter Hill advocates for, when dealing with historical informants, aiming at devising a cognate theory.
