Musurgia Universalis sive ars magna consoni et dissoni in X libros digesta. Qua universa sonorum doctrina, et philosophia, musicaeque... aperiuntur et demonstrantur. Tomus I [-II qui continet... musicam mirificam... magiam consoni et dissoni... harmoniam mundi]

Romae: Ex typographia Haeredum Francisci Corbelletti, 1650. 2 volumes bound in one. Folio. Full contemporary vellum with decorative device blindstamped to upper and lower boards within double inner rules with decorative cornerpieces, double outer rules, raised bands on spine.

Profusely illustrated with musical examples printed typographically in diamond-head notation and with numerous decorative woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces, illustrations, diagrams, tables, etc. throughout, including many of musical instruments. The plates are all finely engraved and illustrate a variety of musical instruments including the harpsichord, organ, strings, and winds.

The musical examples include many different forms, including multiple contrapuntal part-writing.

Vol. I
1f. (recto fine full-page engraved pictorial title by Baronius after a drawing by Paul Schor, incorporating a Canon Angelicus for 9 choirs of 36 voices, verso blank), 1f. (recto title with publisher's device incorporating a butterfly and lyre-like instrument, verso "Synopsis Mvsvrgiae Vniversalis in X. Libros Digestae"), 1f. (recto blank, verso fine full-page engraving of Leopold Guillaume, Archduke of Austria, by Paul Ponti after Paul Schor, dated 1649), 9ff. (dedication to Guillaume, "Praefatio I Ad Lectorem," "Praefatio II Ad eruditos Musicarum rerum Professores," etc.), 690 [!692] pp. With 10 engraved plates numbered I-X on 9ff. (plates IV and V printed together on a single leaf). Frontispiece slightly worn and browned, with lower blank outer corner lacking and 2" tear to lower portion repaired with archival tape; small portion of blank margin of pp. 319/20 lacking; blank lower outer corner of plate X lacking.

Vol. II
1f. (recto fine full-page engraved plate by Petrus Miotte, verso blank), 1f. (recto title with publisher's device incorporating a raven and a scroll, verso "Tristychon in Tomum II"), 462 pp. + 6ff., 1f. (blank), 11ff. (indices), 1f. (errata and list of signatures). With 9 engraved plates numbered XIV-XXIII, two of which are folding (plates XIV and XX). Plate preceding title slightly cropped at head; small portion of outer margin of plate XIX lacking, just touching ruled border; tear to plate XX repaired with archival tape; small portion of outer margin of plate XXI lacking; very small portion of blank lower outer corner of plate XXII lacking; blank outer margin of plate XXIII slightly ragged; small hole to blank outer margin of pp. 161/62; small portion of upper outer corner of p. 207 lacking.

With minor corrections in manuscript to notation on pp. 96, 105, 108, and 123.

Contains a total of 24 engraved plates (21 numbered plus 3 unnumbered).

Free front endpaper with monogrammatic initials to head with "John Brown" and "Joannes Brown" in early manuscript. Upper board detached; hinges splitting. Endpapers worn, browned at margins and with small tears and chips. Uniform light browning, a bit heavier to some leaves; very occasional foxing and small stains; some leaves very slightly trimmed at outer margin; occasional mispagination and other minor defects. Lacking two plates (numbers 11 and 12), printed on a single leaf.

A very good, crisp, clean, wide-margined copy overall. First Edition of the first exhaustive encyclopedia of music, "one of the most influential of all music treatises and specially notable among those of the Baroque period." George J. Buelow in Grove Music Online

Damschroder, pp. 139-140. Cortot, pp. 99-100. Hirsch I, 266. Gregory-Bartlett I, p. 135. Wolffheim I, 732. RISM BVI p. 449.

An extraordinary undertaking by this Jesuit polymath, sometimes referred to as "the last Renaissance man," author of approximately 40 works in a diversity of disciplines.

The Musurgia was an attempt to present the entire body of musical knowledge up to Kircher's time, and is particularly valuable for both its engraved plates of musical instruments and its inclusion of extensive musical examples, many of which are complete 16th and 17th century works chosen to illustrate various styles. The work is widely considered to have been a great success, with Kircher's wide-ranging and insightful scholarship.

"... Musurgia universalis, one of the really influential works of music theory, was drawn upon by almost every later German music theorist until well into the 18th century. ... Much of Kircher's contrapuntal doctrine derives from Zarlino, and in this and some other respects Musurgia universalis presents a synthesis of 16th- and 17th-century Italian and German compositional practices. A specifically German feature, however, is the description of the affective nature of music, in which Kircher brought the concept of musica pathetica into relation with the formal constructive elements of rhetorical doctrine. ... His ideas concerning the classification of musical styles, based on sociological as well as national characteristics, are also original and important for the study of Baroque music. ... Although he was apparently not a practising musician he was able to identify the best music composed and performed in his own (and earlier) times. In Musurgia universalis he quoted frequently extensive music examples from composers such as Agazzari, Gregorio Allegri, Carissimi, Froberger, Gesualdo, Kapsberger, Domenico Mazzocchi and Morales. Other aspects of his treatise that contribute to an understanding of 17th-century musical thought include the lengthy discussions of acoustics, musical instruments, ... the history of music in ancient cultures and the therapeutic value of music." George J. Buelow in Grove Music Online

"Kircher attempted to compile in this book all the musical knowledge available in his day, making it the first exhaustive encyclopedia of music. For musicologists it has long been an invaluable source of information on baroque concepts of style and composition. Kircher wrote the Musurgia at the time of the great transition when the old Renaissance polyphony, still in use in the Church, was giving way to the new baroque style in secular music, most notably in opera. Kircher reveals an astounding knowledge and understanding of contemporary music and of this transition. Indeed, he gives the earliest account of the doctrine of the 'affections', the baroque idea that music should imitate emotions. ... 

Kircher was aided in his research by the Italian composer Antonio Maria Abbatini, the maestro di cappella at the Lateran. Besides his interest in contemporary music theory, Kircher was also firmly established in classical music theory. Like many of his predecessors and contemporaries, he followed Boethius and emphasized the mathematics of music and its relationship to the harmony of the body, per Robert Fludd, and of the solar system, per Kepler... Kircher also discusses many of his own inventions, like the talking statue, the megaphone, and numerous mechanical music-makers. One of these inventions, a product of his mathematical concept of music, is an ingenious composing computer called an arca musarithmica or musurgia mechanica. The arca was a chest containing numbered rods, which the composer could move about and combine to produce melodic and rhythmic patterns. This mathematical method of composition would perhaps seem less odd to the student of modern music than it did to Kircher's contemporaries." Merrill: Athanasius Kircher ... Jesuit Scholar: An Exhibition of His Works in the Harold B. Lee Library Collections at Brigham Young University.

Copies of this monumental work are often found lacking a number of plates; the present copy lacks only a single leaf, plates 11 and 12, printed together.

A cornerstone of the literature.