Music in the Writings and Imagination of Silesian Humanists

Music in the Writings and Imagination of Silesian Humanists explores the musical culture of early modern Silesia via the writings of humanists active there at the time. Their narratives are used to explain how music was perceived and described by representatives of local elites.

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Music in the Writings and Imagination of Silesian Humanists explores the sound-world of early modern Silesia via the writings of humanists active there in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who both observed musical culture and actively participated in it: a poet, a publisher, a pedagogue, a physician, a historian, and a regionalist. Such an approach makes it possible to reconstruct their perceptions and understandings of music—a constitutive element of this community. As these authors concentrated more on the representation of music than the art itself, the book reflects the collective memory of the republic of scholars: their individual and common imaginarium.