Conference Programme
The Musical Humanism of the Renaissance and its Legacy
Conference, 2-4 June 2016, University of Warwick’s Palazzo Pesaro Papafava, Venice
Thursday 2 June, 1.30pm–6.30pm
1.30-2pm
2-2.15pm
Registration & tea/coffee
Welcome (Jacomien Prins)
2.15-4.15pm Session 1: Ancient and Medieval Origins of the Musical Humanism of the
Renaissance
Session chair: Tomas McAuley
1. Tosca Lynch, (classics and philosophy, University of Pavia-Cremona) (20 mins)
‘The Harmony of Virtue in Plato’s Republic: Musical Imagery and Practical Models’
2. Frans de Haas (philosophy, University of Leiden) (20 mins)
‘Renaissance Echoes of Ancient Critical Approaches to Music’
3. Charles Burnett (intellectual history, Warburg Institute) (20 mins)
‘The Lute and the Monochord Compared’
4. Stefano Mengozzi (music, University of Michigan, US) (20 mins)
‘Cicero or Augustine? On the Intellectual Models of Johannes Tinctoris’s Musical
Humanism’
40 mins discussion
4.15-4.30pm Short tea/coffee break
4.30-5.30pm Session 2: The Musical Humanism of the Renaissance Revisited
Session chair: Teresa Rodriguez
5. Michael Allen (UCLA, US) (20 mins)
‘Auditioning a Philosopher: Music, Ficino, and the Apollonian Soul’
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6. Penelope Gouk (intellectual history, Manchester University) (20 mins)
‘Historiographical Reflections on Musical Humanism and its Legacy’
20 mins discussion
5.30-6.30pm Roundtable Discussion 1 (60 mins)
Theme: 1. ‘Revisiting a Number of Paradigmatic Interpretations of the Relationship between
Renaissance Humanism and Music’1
Led by Penelope Gouk and Michael Allen
Friday 3 June, 9-6pm
9am-10.30am Session 3: The Musical Humanism of the Fifteenth Century
Session chair: Stefano Mengozzi
7. Karsten Mackensen (Vertretungsprofessur für Historische Musikwissenschaft Technische
Universität Dresden, Germany) (20 mins)
‘Re-reading Boethius: Faber’s Elementa musicalia (1496)’
8. Jeremy Coleman (music, King’s college, London) (20 mins)
‘Instrumental Theory: Boethius’s Place in the Humanist Project of Music’
9. Ronald Woodley (Music, Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University) (20
mins)
‘Johannes Tinctoris and the Rejection of Cosmic Harmony’
30 mins discussion
10.30-11am Short Coffee break
11am-12.30am Session 4: The Musical Humanism of the Sixteenth Century
Session chair: Katherine Butler
10. Jacomien Prins (Philosophy/Renaissance Studies, Warwick University) (20 mins)
‘What You Assert about the Power of Ancient Music Makes no Sense to Me at All”:
Scaliger’s Attack on Cardano’s Conception of Musical Subtlety’
11. Giuseppe Gerbino (Musicology, Columbia University) (20 mins)
‘The Pleasure of Sound and the Meaning of Pleasure’
12. Timothy R. McKinney (Music Theory, Baylor University, US) (20 mins)
‘Ancient Music Theory and Music’s Expressive Power in the Cinquecento: On the Origins of
the Modern Major/Minor Affective Dichotomy’
30 mins discussion
12.30am -1.30pm Lunch
1.30-2.30pm Lecture Recital
Catalina Vicens (Orpheus Institute, Gent) organetto, harpsichord
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A full description of the three roundtables (including literature suggestions) is given at the end of this
Programme.
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Organetto and harpsichord music from 15th and 16th Century Italy and Spain
2.30-4.00pm Session 5: New Directions in the Study of Renaissance Philosophy of Music
Session chair: Charles Burnett
13. Hanna Gentili (intellectual history, The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study,
University of London) (20 mins)
Music, Words and the Ascending Soul of the Philosopher: Possible Influences from Jewish
Mysticism on Marsilio Ficino’s Theory of Sound and Spiritus
14. Teresa Rodriguez (philosophy, Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM, Mexico
City, Mexico) (20 mins)
‘A New Epistemological Approach to Marsilio Ficino’s Philosophy of Music’
15. Ovanes Akopyan (Renaissance studies, University of Warwick) (20 mins)
‘Symphony, Diapason, and Number: The World as Musical Structure in Francesco Zorzi’s
De harmonia mundi’
30 mins discussion
4-4.15pm Short Tea/Coffee Break
4.15-5.45pm Session 6: New Directions in the Study of the Musical Thought of the
Renaissance
Session chair: Wendy Heller
16. Daniel Rogers (music, Indiana University, US) (20 mins)
‘A Reevaluation of Musical Imitatio in the Late 15th Century’
17. Stefano Lorenzetti (music, Conservatory of Vicenza) (20 mins)
‘Memory of Music and Music of Memory in the Renaissance’
18. Sigrid Harris (music, University of Queensland, Australia) (20 mins)
‘“Sì canta l’empia”: Women’s Music as Power in Early Modern Italy’
Discussion (30 mins)
5.45-6.45pm Roundtable Discussion 2 (60 mins)
Theme: New Directions in the Study of the Musical Humanism of the Renaissance
Led by Charles Burnett and Giuseppe Gerbino
Saturday 4 June 9am-6pm
9am-10.30am Session 6: Music’s Connections to Mathematics, Philosophy of Nature, and
Medicine
Session chair: Frans de Haas
19. Remi Chiu (History of medicine, Loyola University Maryland, US) (20 mins)
‘Sympathetic Resonance, Sympathetic Contagion: Theories of Plague Transmission from
Ficino to Fracastoro’
20. Isaac Louth (English, Princeton University, US) (20 mins)
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‘Musical Matter and Rhetorical Experience in Francis Bacon’s Natural Philosophy’
21. Samantha Bassler (Musicology, Westminster Choir College of Rider University, New
York) (20 mins)
‘Ophelia’s Mad Songs, Humanism, and Performing Story in Early Modern England’
30 mins discussion
10.30-11.am Short Coffee/Tea Break
11am-1pm Session 7: Music’s Connections to Rhetoric, Poetics, Literature, Religion, and
Classical Scholarship
Session chair: Jacomien Prins
22. Tim Shephard (music/history of art, University of Sheffield, UK) (20 mins)
‘Orpheus and the Animals: Representing Persuasion Musically (Italy ca.1500)’
23. Giovanni Zanovello (music, Indiana University, US) (20 mins)
‘Singing and Debating: Religious Communities, Classical Culture, and Music in LateFifteenth-Century Florence’
24. Bláithín Hurley (history of art, Warwick University) (20 mins)
‘Moderating the Motions of the Soul: Attaining a Musical Humanist Education in
Renaissance Venice’
25. Katherine Butler (music, Oxford University) (20 mins)
‘The Changing Status of Stories of Music’s Power: Irreverent Portrayals of Musical Heroes
in Late Seventeenth-Century England’
Discussion (40 mins)
1-2pm Lunch
2-3pm Lecture recital
Patrizia Bovi (Orpheus Institute, Gent) voice
Catalina Vicens (Orpheus Institute, Gent) harpsichord
‘Music and Love in Italian Renaissance Humanism’
3-5pm Session 8: The Musical Humanism of the Renaissance from the 17th Century onwards
Session chair: Giuseppe Gerbino
26. Wendy Heller (music/Italian studies, Princeton University) (20 mins)
‘Ovidio Travestito: Viewing Seicento Opera through Anguillara’s Lens’
27. Andrea Korenjak (music, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for the History of Art
and Musicology) (20 mins)
‘Musical Humanism in Medical Writings and Psychiatric Practices in 19th Century Vienna’
28. Tomas McAuley (music, Cambridge University) (20 mins)
‘Renaissance Humanism and Relational Musicology’
29. Speaker [TBC] (20 mins)
‘Musical Humanism in 20th and 21th Centuries Thought’
Discussion (40 mins)
5-5.15pm Short Coffee/Tea Break
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5.15-6.15pm Roundtable Discussion 3 (60 mins)
Theme: The Musical Humanism of the Renaissance and its Place in the History of
Musicology and Philosophy
Led by Tomas McAuley and Jacomien Prins
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Roundtables
1. “Revisiting a Number of Paradigmatic Interpretations of the Relationship between
Renaissance Humanism and Music”
The idea that music as a concept experienced a fundamental transformation during the
Renaissance, in which it was allied with the humanities (rhetoric, poetry, and historical and
classical scholarship) in a new way is widely accepted today. According to this view, the
Renaissance was a period in which new links between text, music and emotion were forged.
In addition, the musical humanism of the Renaissance is often conceptualised in terms of a
rebirth of ancient conceptions of the relationship between music, text, and emotion. As
Vendrix (2008) has argued, adopting such a perspective could nevertheless seem somewhat
reductive. Similar limitations are encountered in views on the subject which seem to share the
endorsement of a humanist utopia of some important Renaissance scholars, a position which
is difficult to defend for a modern historian of ideas or a historian of music. Tomlinson
(2006) has discussed the pros and cons of these views as well as of other important
paradigms, which have hitherto determined a large part of the study of the relationship
between Renaissance humanism and music. His evaluation of these paradigms –from Whig
Humanism to Christian Humanism– will be the point of departure for this round table which
aims to assess the heuristic value of existing scholarship.
2. “New Developments in the Study of the Musical Humanism of the Renaissance”
For all the strengths of earlier approaches, our views on the relationship between Renaissance
humanism and music have become more complex and nuanced and have been redirected by
changing historiographical agendas, ranging from a ‘cognitive turn’ to a ‘gender turn’ and
most recently a ‘mobility turn’. In this roundtable we evaluate the potential of these newer
paradigms. Tomlinson, for example, has sketched the heuristic potential of what he has
termed ‘Ordinary-Language Humanism’ (2006). In addition, we will discuss the value for our
purposes of approaches from disciplines not primarily focused on music or on Renaissance
studies. Such disciplines might include women’s studies, gender studies, disability studies,
memory studies, and culture and cognition studies.
3. “The legacy of the musical humanism of the Renaissance”
In order to overcome the chronological boundaries of the Renaissance, this roundtable will
use Braudel’s concept of the longue durée as a rallying point to investigate how we can study
the musical humanism of this period in terms of long-term historical structures. We will
investigate the relationship between the musical humanism of the Renaissance and the
ancient and medieval learned traditions they used as a source of inspiration. Moreover, we
will ask how the relationship between music, philosophy and humanism changed during the
last four centuries. Finally, we will discuss whether there is a specific legacy of the musical
humanism of the Renaissance, and if this can be determined in terms of slowly evolving
conceptions of the relationship between music, the human, history and language.
The humanist conception of music as a language –as expressive and intelligible has been a
dominant theory in Western culture in our time. Are there any traces left of Renaissance
beliefs about the relationship between music, language and mind, such as the view that music
is expressive by causing certain states in us, in modern aesthetic theories? If modern
philosophers were to pay greater attention to the humanities and vice versa would this be
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beneficial not only for the humanities and humanist scholarship but also for philosophy and
for a more complete and more balanced understanding of our musical experience?
Literature suggestions:
In addition to the Bibliography in James Haar’s entry “Humanism” in the Grove Music
Online, we are formulating a list with suggested readings for the conference, which includes:
ADD Jessie Ann Owens, “Music Historiography and the Definition of "Renaissance", Notes,
Second Series, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Dec., 1990), pp. 305-330
ADD Niemoller
Titel
Literatur, Musik und Kunst im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit : Bericht über
Kolloquien der Kommission zur Erforschung der Kultur des Spätmittelalters 1989 bis
1992 / hrsg. von Hartmut Boockmann ... [et al.]
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Sharpe, R.A., Music and Humanism: An Essay in the Aesthetics of Music, Oxford:
Oxford U.P., 2000.
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Strohm, Reinhard, “The Idea of a Musical Renaissance. Music, Humanism, and the
Idea of a “Rebirth” xxx: add original book; reprinted in: Philippe Vendrix (ed.), Music
and the Renaissance: Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, Farnham:
Ashgate, 2011, pp. 3-65.
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Tomlinson, Gary, “Renaissance Humanism and Music”, in: James Haar (ed.),
European music 1520-1640, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2006, pp. 1-19.
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Vendrix, Philippe, “L’impossible Renaissance musicale: Les débats sur l’histoire de la
musique de la Renaissance au XXe siècle”, Bibliothèque d’humanisme et
Renaissance, LXVI/1 (2004), pp. 7-22.
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Vendrix, Philippe, “Music and Model in the Renaissance”, in Philippe Vendrix (ed.),
Music and Mathematics in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Turnhout:
Brepols, 2008, pp. 9-22.
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