Boethius' musica humana: prehistory and history of an idea

The present paper aims at investigating the idea of musica humana, the explanation of which is announced by Boethius at the beginning of his De institutione musica, even if he never harks back on it in the remaining part of that treatise. Starting from a study of the preliminary remarks of such a concept in previous treatises and going on with an enquiry on the potential texts which Boethius and his coeval readers had in mind, the middle position of musica humana within the tripartition of music (borrowed from the divisiones philosophiae) acquires new meanings and launches new research perspectives.

At the beginning of Boethius’ De institutione musica, musica humana is defined as a coaptatio , a well ordered relationship between body and soul and between the parts of the body and the parts of the soul. Boethius promised to expand the topic later, but he never returned to it. As a consequence Medieval and Renaissance music theorists gave it different interpretations. This paper is part of a wider project which aims at recovering the historical meaning of musica humana and its natural implications for human life, by identifying Boethius’ sources on the relationship between music and the human body. Analyzing some of the Pythagorean, Hippocratic and Neoplatonic treatises on embryology, numerology and music as well as their reception in the Latin culture, this paper will explore the definition of musica humana as a style of thought which connected music and science using the same interpretative models, metaphors and images, well-known at Boethius’ time.