The Astronomical Treatise of George Gemistus Plethon

Présentation du traité astronomique de Georges Gémiste Plétho

An archaeology of the fourfold classifications in the 19th century

As soon as 1937 (maybe 1910?), Galpin had suggested that the fourfold classification published by Mahillon in 1878 was drawn from the traditional Indian division of musical instruments into four classes. Over the century, this idea was repeatedly reported and progressively associated with the Raja Tagore until Jairazbhoy directly linked it with the ancient Sanskrit treatise Nâtya-shâstra. However, the recent identification of the information sent by Tagore to Belgium in 1876 and the answers he gave to Mahillon during the year 1877 offer an opportunity to reopen this issue. These new documents provide an insight into the Raja’s socio-political project, his personal interpretation of the Indian fourfold classification and the conditions in which his 98 instruments for Brussels were produced. Consequently, they make it possible to better understand the organological and classificatory choices made by Mahillon as he was studying the Tagore collection at the new-born Instrumental Museum in Brussels. Yet, because the agendas of both men demonstrate strong discrepancies, one can hardly place them in an unequivocal causal relationship. On the contrary, they call for an “archaeology” that can account for their respective historical background and intellectual patterns. A study of the dissemination of the Indian classification in European literature from the 18th century onwards gives evidence that Mahillon was most probably aware of its existence long before he began to work on the Tagore collection. In this respect, the Raja’s main contribution was to substitute a vernacular Hindi terminology with its Sanskrit counterpart, a fact fully compliant with the Bengal Renaissance that proves to have been influent far beyond the British Raj. Furthermore, an investigation of the way this collection was originally organized by the Bengali Raja and how it was later restructured by the Belgian curator demonstrates the existence of two contrasting conceptions of classification: whereas Tagore relied on an “idiographical” system that can only operate within the musical tradition in which it was produced, Mahillon adopted a “nomological” model based on the physical properties of vibrating bodies whose outcome is putatively universal. This latter distinction leads to a discussion of the physical classifications developed by acousticians from the late 18th century on. Chladni’s experiments on stationary waves in 1787 paved the way to an implicit fourfold organization of vibrating bodies which was gradually refined in subsequent publications. However, an explicit application of this model on musical instruments was not achieved before three decades, a lapse of time that illustrates the difficulty of bringing together physical and musical patterns of thinking. The instrumental classifications attempted by acousticians in the first half of the 19th century show that this resistance is attributable to the very nature of musical instruments: because they are above all bearers of a set of traditional cultural values, they resist being reduced to their mere physical dimension. In a final analysis, the Indian classification paradoxically enabled Mahillon to overcome the cultural dimension of musical artefacts by transposing their traditional idiographical perception into their physical nomological description

The re-examination of two of the articles abridged: to wit, of the communicants gesture in the act of receaving, eating, and drinking: and The observation of festivall dayes [electronic resource]

By David Calderwood.Place of publication conjectured by STC.Includes (on pages 60-3): A passage of Master William Cowper pretended bishop of Gallway, his sermon delivered before the estates, anno 1606. at which time hee was minister at Perth.Formerly STC 10062.Identified as STC 10062 on UMI microfilm.Reproduction of the original in the British Library.STC (2nd ed.)Electronic reproduction

Bishop Burnet's History of the reign of King James the Second.

Originally published as part of Bishop Burnet's History of his own time.Edited by Martin J. Routh.Mode of access: Internet