Spotlight On: Music, science and flights of fancy in Musurgia Universalis

Athanasius Kircher is probably the most prolific polymath you’ve never heard of.

Over the course of a career that spanned much of the 17th century, the German Jesuit priest and scholar published some 40 books on topics as varied as Egyptology, geology, magnetism, medicine, optics, and mathematics. He was among the earliest to observe microbes through a microscope; he was the first to propose that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism; he even invented the megaphone.

As his biographer John Glassie notes, Kircher might well have been remembered today as a 17th century Leonardo - were it not for his tendency to present wild speculation as established fact. Kircher confidently asserted that magnetism was a divine force; that a network of fires and oceans led to the Earth’s core; that mountains were hollow and filled with water.

In this lunchtime program, University of Melbourne lecturer and philosopher Dr Jenny Judge will unpack the philosophical theories Kircher tried to revive and defend in Musurgia Universalis, his 1650 compendium of music theory from the Rare Music Collection, evaluating their success, while also illuminating Kircher a strikingly unique scholar. Jenny will provide insights into how as long as there has been science and philosophy, the brightest among us have felt the power of music and struggled to make sense of it.

Presented in partnership with the PGAV’s Analog Art program, Archives and Special Collections' Spotlight Series features archivists, librarians, curators, researchers, academics and artists. Each session spotlights the wonders our collections hold and create san informal space for engaging in critical conversations, reflective discussions, slow looking, creative workshops, talks and much more.