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129-542: The Aeolian harp – already known in the ancient world – was first described by Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) in his books Musurgia Universalis (1650) and Phonurgia Nova (1673). It became popular as a household instrument during the Romantic era , and Aeolian harps are still hand-crafted today. Some are now made in the form of monumental metal sound sculptures located on the roofs of buildings and windy hilltops. The quality of sound depends on many factors, including

258-434: A deer moved into a colder climate, it became a reindeer . He wrote that many species were hybrids of other species, for example, armadillos from a combination of turtles and porcupines . He also advocated the theory of spontaneous generation . Because of such hypotheses, some historians have held that Kircher was a proto-evolutionist. Kircher took a modern approach to the study of diseases as early as 1646 by using

387-426: A microscope to investigate the blood of plague victims. In his Scrutinium Pestis of 1658, he observed the presence of "little worms" or " animalcules " in the blood and concluded that the disease was caused by microorganisms . That was correct, although it is likely that what he saw were red or white blood cells and not the plague agent, Yersinia pestis . He also proposed hygienic measures to prevent

516-454: A missionary to that country. In 1667 he published a treatise whose full title was China monumentis, qua sacris qua profanis, nec non variis naturae & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata , and which is commonly known simply as China Illustrata , i.e. "China Illustrated". It was a work of encyclopedic breadth, combining material of unequal quality, from accurate cartography to mythical elements, such as

645-453: A canonical text. The first printed edition of Homer was produced in 1488 in Milan, Italy by Demetrios Chalkokondyles . Today scholars use medieval manuscripts, papyri and other sources; some argue for a "multi-text" view, rather than seeking a single definitive text. The nineteenth-century edition of Arthur Ludwich mainly follows Aristarchus's work, whereas van Thiel's (1991, 1996) follows

774-610: A clear overall design and that they are not merely strung together from unrelated songs. It is also generally agreed that each poem was composed mostly by a single author, who probably relied heavily on older oral traditions. Nearly all scholars agree that the Doloneia in Book X of the Iliad is not part of the original poem, but rather a later insertion by a different poet. Some ancient scholars believed Homer to have been an eyewitness to

903-453: A delicate, tender, and flowing melody in the fifth finger of the pianist's right hand, over a background of rapid pedaled arpeggios as the free resonances of the pedal lifted strings flow air-like. A piece written to imitate the instrument's sounds is Sergei Lyapunov 's 12 études d'exécution transcendante , Op. 11, No. 9, written between 1897 and 1905, which is named by the author harpes éoliennes (Aeolian harps). In this virtuoso piece,

1032-531: A discredited dead end. Starting in around 1928, Milman Parry and Albert Lord , after their studies of folk bards in the Balkans, developed the "Oral-Formulaic Theory" that the Homeric poems were originally composed through improvised oral performances, which relied on traditional epithets and poetic formulas. This theory found very wide scholarly acceptance and explained many previously puzzling features of

1161-528: A field of serious study. Kircher's interest in Egyptology began in 1628 when he became intrigued by a collection of hieroglyphs in the library at Speyer . He learned Coptic in 1633 and published its first grammar in 1636, the Prodromus coptus sive aegyptiacus . Kircher then broke with Horapollon's interpretation of hieroglyphs with his Lingua aegyptiaca restituta . Kircher argued that Coptic preserved

1290-580: A hotel in Baroque Rome by the papal health authorities because of an epidemic of plague. Kircher's theory about the healing power of music is remembered by the protagonists in various flashbacks and finally provides the key to the puzzle. In Where Tigers Are At Home , by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès , the protagonist works on a translation of a bogus 17th-century biography of Kircher. The contemporary artist Cybèle Varela has paid tribute to Kircher in her exhibition Ad Sidera per Athanasius Kircher , held in

1419-410: A learned tongue many people at the time believed they were correct." Although Kircher's approach to deciphering texts was based on a fundamental misconception, some modern commentators have described Kircher as the pioneer of the serious study of hieroglyphs. The data which he collected were later consulted by Champollion in his successful efforts to decode the script. According to Joseph MacDonnell, it

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1548-569: A long history of being associated with the numinous, perhaps for its vibrant timbres that produce an ethereal sound. Homer relates that Hermes invented the lyre from dried sinews stretched over a tortoise shell. It was able to be played by the wind. The same is said of the lyre of King David , which was played by a wind sent from God. Aeolian harps have been featured and mentioned in a number of poems. These include at least four Romantic-era poems: "The Eolian Harp" and "Dejection, an Ode", both by Samuel Taylor Coleridge , and "Mutability" and " Ode to

1677-481: A museum in San Francisco. This harp was built in 1976 by Douglas Hollis, a local artist. Its volume is amplified by two metal disks placed on one side of it. In addition, a natural wind tunnel ensures enough wind is passing over the harp's seven high-pitched strings. In Sydney, Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton is an even larger 18-metre-tall, 10 ton steel Aeolian harp which doubles as the world's largest fiddle. It

1806-605: A number of Aeolian harps exceeding six metres in height have been constructed. Aeolian harps of this size are normally made from metal. In Negrar , in the province of Verona (Italy), is a modern monument Aeolian harp more than six metres high. It is a sound monument designed by the Italian architect Giuseppe Ferlenga which was inaugurated in November 2015 from the Sports and Cultural Group of Mazzano. The acoustic part of this tool

1935-415: A phrase or idea is repeated at both the beginning and end of a story, or a series of such ideas first appears in the order A, B, C ... before being reversed as ... C, B, A) has been observed in the Homeric epics. Opinion differs as to whether these occurrences are a conscious artistic device, a mnemonic aid or a spontaneous feature of human storytelling. Both of the Homeric poems begin with an invocation to

2064-583: A short section "O, Harp Eolian!" in the Aeolus chapter of Ulysses (1922). More recently, an Aeolian harp was also featured in Ian Fleming 's 1964 children's novel Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang to make a cave seem haunted. In William Heinesen 's novel The Lost Musicians (1950), set in Tórshavn , character Kornelius Isaksen takes his three sons to a little church where, in the tower, they sit listening to

2193-405: A single taut string. Most household Aeolian harps are made of wood, featuring a sound board and sound hole to improve how the instrument resonates. In terms of size, they are usually about one metre by 13 centimetres by 8 centimetres, with ten to twelve gut strings stretched over two bridges . On some Aeolian harps, all the strings are tuned to the same frequency, as the wind will already influence

2322-474: A string stop. The "aeolian" stops are among the softest found on pipe organs. A number of classical pieces have been compared to the sounds of the Aeolian harp. One of the oldest has to be the Étude in A flat major Op. 25, No. 1 for piano (1836) by Frédéric Chopin , which is sometimes called the "Aeolian Harp etude". This nickname was not Chopin's own, being given to it by Robert Schumann . The piece features

2451-619: A study of dragons . The work drew heavily on the reports of Jesuits working in China, in particular Michael Boym and Martino Martini . China Illustrata emphasized the Christian elements of Chinese history, both real and imagined: the book noted the early presence of Nestorian Christians (with a Latin translation of the Nestorian Stele of Xi'an provided by Boym and his Chinese collaborator, Andrew Zheng), but also claimed that

2580-580: Is Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–54), a vast study of Egyptology and comparative religion . His books, written in Latin , were widely circulated in the 17th century, and contributed to the wide dissemination of scientific information. Kircher is not considered to have made any significant original contributions, although some discoveries and inventions (e.g., the magic lantern ) have sometimes been mistakenly attributed to him. In his foreword to Ars Magna Sciendi Sive Combinatoria (The Great Art of Knowledge, or

2709-592: Is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally . Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the Homeric poems also contain instances of comedy and laughter . Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato , Homer was simply the one who "has taught Greece" ( τὴν Ἑλλάδα πεπαίδευκεν , tēn Helláda pepaídeuken ). In Dante Alighieri 's Divine Comedy , Virgil refers to Homer as "Poet sovereign", king of all poets; in

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2838-566: Is called parataxis . The so-called ' type scenes ' ( typische Szenen ), were named by Walter Arend in 1933. He noted that Homer often, when describing frequently recurring activities such as eating, praying , fighting and dressing, used blocks of set phrases in sequence that were then elaborated by the poet. The 'Analyst' school had considered these repetitions as un-Homeric, whereas Arend interpreted them philosophically. Parry and Lord noted that these conventions are found in many other cultures. 'Ring composition' or chiastic structure (when

2967-581: Is composed of a frame that contains a copper harmonic case. The Aeolian Harp of Negrar has six strings of different lengths and materials. If there is wind, this monumental harp produces audible sounds up to a distance of about four metres. There are many more Aeolian harps of this size and larger in North America. In the Mimbres Valley of New Mexico, there is an Aeolian harp, titled Tempest Song , exceeding seven metres in height. Tempest Song

3096-658: Is fundamentally based on Ionic Greek , in keeping with the tradition that Homer was from Ionia. Linguistic analysis suggests that the Iliad was composed slightly before the Odyssey and that Homeric formulae preserve features older than other parts of the poems. The poems were composed in unrhymed dactylic hexameter ; ancient Greek metre was quantity-based rather than stress-based. Homer frequently uses set phrases such as epithets ('crafty Odysseus ', 'rosy-fingered Dawn ', 'owl-eyed Athena ', etc.), Homeric formulae ('and then answered [him/her], Agamemnon, king of men', 'when

3225-514: Is similar in appearance to a standard harp with 45 strings tuned to the C minor pentatonic scale and a central bearing originally being from a semi-truck. It was built by Bob Griesing and Bill Neely in June and July 2000, and at the time was mistakenly declared the "World's Largest Aeolian Harp". An even larger Aeolian harp, measuring in at eight metres tall, can be found at the Exploratorium ,

3354-582: Is stabler and stronger than wood. The ability of the wind to play string instruments has been known and referenced since ancient times. Aeolian harps have been found in China, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Indonesia, and Melanesia. Aside from famous Aeolian harp monuments, many can be found along isolated expanses of the European coast in countries such as Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, where they are played by strong ocean winds. Recently, they have become more popular as lawn and window ornaments. The Aeolian harp has

3483-403: Is their source of sound, the strings, and the fact they are played by the wind. This distinguishes Aeolian harps from other instruments played by the wind, such as wind chimes. The harp is driven by the von Kármán vortex street effect. The motion of the wind across a string causes periodic vortices downstream, and this alternating vortex causes the string to vibrate. Lord Rayleigh first solved

3612-505: The Capture of Oechalia , and the Phocais . These claims are not considered authentic today and were not universally accepted in the ancient world. As with the multitude of legends surrounding Homer's life, they indicate little more than the centrality of Homer to ancient Greek culture. Some ancient accounts about Homer were established early and repeated often. They include that Homer

3741-885: The Collegio Romano , in the same place where the Museum Kircherianum was. The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles has a hall dedicated to the life of Kircher. His ethnographic collection is in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome. John Glassie's book, A Man of Misconceptions , traces connections between Kircher and figures such as Gianlorenzo Bernini , René Descartes , and Isaac Newton . It also suggests influences on Edgar Allan Poe , Franz Anton Mesmer , Jules Verne , and Marcel Duchamp . In

3870-511: The Habsburg court. On the intervention of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc , the order was rescinded, and he was sent instead to Rome to continue with his scholarly work, but he had already embarked for Vienna. On the way, his ship was blown off course and he arrived in Rome before he knew of the changed destination. He based himself in the city for the rest of his life, and from 1634 he taught mathematics, physics and Oriental languages at

3999-573: The Iliad alone is massive, sprawling over nearly 4,000 oversized pages in a 21st-century printed version and his commentary on the Odyssey an additional nearly 2,000. In 1488, the Greek scholar Demetrios Chalkokondyles published in Florence the editio princeps of the Homeric poems. The earliest modern Homeric scholars started with the same basic approaches towards the Homeric poems as scholars in antiquity. The allegorical interpretation of

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4128-897: The Iliad and the Odyssey are associated with the name "Homer". In antiquity, a large number of other works were sometimes attributed to him, including the Homeric Hymns , the Contest of Homer and Hesiod , several epigrams , the Little Iliad , the Nostoi , the Thebaid , the Cypria , the Epigoni , the comic mini-epic Batrachomyomachia ("The Frog–Mouse War"), the Margites ,

4257-443: The Iliad and the Odyssey in the sixth century BC by literate authors. After being written down, Wolf maintained that the two poems were extensively edited, modernized, and eventually shaped into their present state as artistic unities. Wolf and the "Analyst" school, which led the field in the nineteenth century, sought to recover the original, authentic poems which were thought to be concealed by later excrescences. Within

4386-462: The Muse . In the Iliad , the poet beseeches her to sing of "the anger of Achilles", and in the Odyssey , he asks her to tell of "the man of many ways". A similar opening was later employed by Virgil in his Aeneid . The orally transmitted Homeric poems were put into written form at some point between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE. Some scholars believe that they were dictated to a scribe by

4515-639: The Odyssey during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. As a result of the poems' prominence in classical Greek education, extensive commentaries on them developed to explain parts that were culturally or linguistically difficult. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, many interpreters, especially the Stoics , who believed that Homeric poems conveyed Stoic doctrines, regarded them as allegories, containing hidden wisdom. Perhaps partially because of

4644-574: The Odyssey in which Telemachus went in search of news of his father not to Menelaus in Sparta but to Idomeneus in Crete, in which Telemachus met up with his father in Crete and conspired with him to return to Ithaca disguised as the soothsayer Theoclymenus, and in which Penelope recognized Odysseus much earlier in the narrative and conspired with him in the destruction of the suitors. Most contemporary scholars, although they disagree on other questions about

4773-485: The Trojan War ; others thought he had lived up to 500 years afterwards. Contemporary scholars continue to debate the date of the poems. A long history of oral transmission lies behind the composition of the poems, complicating the search for a precise date. At one extreme, Richard Janko has proposed a date for both poems to the eighth century BC based on linguistic analysis and statistics. Barry B. Powell dates

4902-500: The magic lantern has been misattributed to Kircher, although he conducted a study of the principles involved in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae . A scientific star in his day, towards the end of his life he was eclipsed by the rationalism of René Descartes and others. In the late 20th century, however, the aesthetic qualities of his work again began to be appreciated. One modern scholar, Alan Cutler, described Kircher as "a giant among seventeenth-century scholars", and "one of

5031-532: The tides were caused by water moving to and from a subterranean ocean . Kircher was also puzzled by fossils . He understood that fossils were the remains of animals. He ascribed large bones to giant races of humans. Not all the objects which he was attempting to explain were in fact fossils, hence the diversity of explanations. He interpreted mountain ranges as the Earth's skeletal structures exposed by weathering. Mundus Subterraneus includes several pages about

5160-422: The tremolo accompaniment seems to imitate the sound of the instrument. In classical harp repertoire, an example of such imitation (mostly employing glissandi and arpeggios) is "La harpe éolienne" by Félix Godefroid . Later, Henry Cowell 's Aeolian Harp (1923) was one of the first piano pieces to feature extended techniques on the piano that included plucking and sweeping the pianist's hands directly across

5289-483: The "capriciously varying sounds of an Aeolian harp", which leads the boys into a lifelong passion for music. El arpa eólica ( The Aeolian Harp ) is an alternate history novelette written by Óscar Esquivias . It was originally published in 2011 by Fábulas de Albión. The novelette depicts the life of Berlioz as a young student in Paris. Imitations of the Aeolian harp have been present in classical music since at least

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5418-545: The Analyst school were two camps: proponents of the "lay theory", which held that the Iliad and the Odyssey were put together from a large number of short, independent songs, and proponents of the "nucleus theory", which held that Homer had originally composed shorter versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey , which later poets expanded and revised. A small group of scholars opposed to the Analysts, dubbed "Unitarians", saw

5547-800: The Bronze Age Aegean civilisation , which in many ways resembles the ancient Near East more than the society described by Homer. Some aspects of the Homeric world are simply made up; for instance, the Iliad 22.145–56 describes there being two springs that run near the city of Troy, one that runs steaming hot and the other that runs icy cold. It is here that Hector takes his final stand against Achilles. Archaeologists, however, have uncovered no evidence that springs of this description ever actually existed. The Homeric epics are written in an artificial literary language or 'Kunstsprache' only used in epic hexameter poetry. Homeric Greek shows features of multiple regional Greek dialects and periods, but

5676-634: The Chinese were descended from the sons of Ham , that Confucius was Hermes Trismegistus/Moses and that the Chinese characters were abstracted hieroglyphs. In Kircher's system, ideograms were inferior to hieroglyphs because they referred to specific ideas rather than to mysterious complexes of ideas, while the signs of the Maya and Aztecs were yet lower pictograms which referred only to objects. Umberto Eco comments that this idea reflected and supported

5805-556: The Collegio Romano (now the Pontifical Gregorian University ) for several years before being released to devote himself to research. He studied malaria and the plague , amassing a collection of antiquities , which he exhibited along with devices of his own creation in the Museum Kircherianum . In 1661, Kircher discovered the ruins of a church said to have been constructed by Constantine on

5934-490: The Combinatorial Art), the inscription reads: "Nothing is more beautiful than to know all." The last known example of Egyptian hieroglyphics dates from AD 394, after which all knowledge of hieroglyphics was lost. Until Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion found the key to hieroglyphics in the 19th century, the main authority was the 4th-century Greek grammarian Horapollon , whose chief contribution

6063-661: The Copernican ;— as distinct possibilities. The clock has been reconstructed by Caroline Bouguereau in collaboration with Michael John Gorman and is on display at the Green Library at Stanford University. The Musurgia Universalis (1650) sets out Kircher's views on music : he believed that the harmony of music reflected the proportions of the universe . The book includes plans for constructing water-powered automatic organs , notations of birdsong and diagrams of musical instruments . One illustration shows

6192-500: The Form of an epic Poem till Pisistratus ' time, about 500 Years after." Friedrich August Wolf 's Prolegomena ad Homerum , published in 1795, argued that much of the material later incorporated into the Iliad and the Odyssey was originally composed in the tenth century BC in the form of short, separate oral songs, which passed through oral tradition for roughly four hundred years before being assembled into prototypical versions of

6321-476: The Homeric poems that had been so prevalent in antiquity returned to become the prevailing view of the Renaissance . Renaissance humanists praised Homer as the archetypically wise poet, whose writings contain hidden wisdom, disguised through allegory. In western Europe during the Renaissance , Virgil was more widely read than Homer and Homer was often seen through a Virgilian lens. In 1664, contradicting

6450-433: The Homeric poems' extensive use in education, many authors believed that Homer's original purpose had been to educate. Homer's wisdom became so widely praised that he began to acquire the image of almost a prototypical philosopher. Byzantine scholars such as Eustathius of Thessalonica and John Tzetzes produced commentaries, extensions and scholia to Homer, especially in the twelfth century. Eustathius's commentary on

6579-563: The Homeric poems, including their unusually archaic language, their extensive use of stock epithets, and their other "repetitive" features. Many scholars concluded that the "Homeric Question" had finally been answered. Meanwhile, the 'Neoanalysts' sought to bridge the gap between the 'Analysts' and 'Unitarians'. The Neoanalysts sought to trace the relationships between the Homeric poems and other epic poems, which have now been lost, but of which modern scholars do possess some patchy knowledge. Neoanalysts hold that knowledge of earlier versions of

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6708-510: The Lucia and Aristides Demetrios Wind Harp, which stands at 28 metres tall. This Aeolian harp is located a little over 74 metres above sea level, which means it always receives a suitable breeze and that it comes with a panoramic view of South San Francisco and some of the Bay. Likewise, the instrument, in appearance resembling a set of steel beams connected by curved grates, is visible throughout much of

6837-682: The West Wind " by Percy Bysshe Shelley . The former of these two appears alongside his essay "A Defence of Poetry". Henry David Thoreau also wrote a poem called "Rumors from an Aeolian Harp", which he included in the "Monday" chapter of his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers . Aeolian harps have also been mentioned in several novels. These include George Eliot 's Middlemarch (1871–72), Thomas Hardy 's The Trumpet-Major (1880) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), and Vladimir Nabokov 's Lolita (1955). James Joyce had

6966-401: The city. Athanasius Kircher Athanasius Kircher SJ (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion , geology , and medicine . Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his vast range of interests, and has been honoured with

7095-557: The clock's motion supported the Copernican cosmological model, arguing that the magnetic sphere in the clock rotated by the magnetic force of the sun . Kircher's model disproved that hypothesis, showing that the motion could be produced by a water clock in the base of the device. Although Kircher disputed the Copernican model in his Magnes , supporting instead that of Tycho Brahe , his later Itinerarium exstaticum (1656, revised 1671), presented several systems — including

7224-482: The composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey to sometime between 800 and 750 BC, based on the statement from Herodotus , who lived in the late fifth century BC, that Homer lived four hundred years before his own time "and not more" ( καὶ οὐ πλέοσι ) and on the fact that the poems do not mention hoplite battle tactics, inhumation , or literacy. Martin Litchfield West has argued that the Iliad echoes

7353-550: The context of his Coptic studies. However, according to Steven Frimmer, "none of them even remotely fitted the original texts". In Oedipus Aegyptiacus , Kircher argued under the impression of the Hieroglyphica that ancient Egyptian was the language spoken by Adam and Eve , that Hermes Trismegistus was Moses , and that hieroglyphs were occult symbols which "cannot be translated by words, but expressed only by marks, characters and figures." This led him to translate

7482-596: The days of the Roman emperor Hadrian says Epicaste (daughter of Nestor ) and Telemachus (son of Odysseus ) were the parents of Homer. The two best known ancient biographies of Homer are the Life of Homer by the Pseudo-Herodotus and the Contest of Homer and Hesiod . In the early fourth century BC Alcidamas composed a fictional account of a poetry contest at Chalcis with both Homer and Hesiod . Homer

7611-426: The differences between the ears of humans and other animals. In Phonurgia Nova (1673) Kircher considered the possibilities of transmitting music to remote places. Other machines designed by Kircher include an aeolian harp , automatons such as a statue which spoke and listened via a speaking tube , a perpetual motion machine , and a Katzenklavier ("cat piano"). The Katzenklavier would have driven spikes into

7740-590: The disaster via astrology, though Kircher privately insisted that he had not relied on it. This was the year that Kircher published his first book (the Ars Magnesia , reporting his research on magnetism ), but having been caught up in the Thirty Years' War he was driven to the papal University of Avignon in France . In 1633 he was called to Vienna by the emperor to succeed Kepler as Mathematician to

7869-545: The divisions back further to the Classical period. Very few credit Homer himself with the divisions. In antiquity, it was widely held that the Homeric poems were collected and organised in Athens in the late sixth century BCE by Pisistratus (died 528/7 BCE), in what subsequent scholars have dubbed the "Peisistratean recension". The idea that the Homeric poems were originally transmitted orally and first written down during

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7998-435: The early nineteenth century. Builders of pipe organs have included stops intended to imitate the sound and timbre of the Aeolian harp. German builders were the first to include such a stop from the 1820s. The organ stop labeled "aeolian harp" is not a harp – it does not use a vibrating string – it is simply a rank of low air pressure pipes , voiced to imitate the sound of the real aeolian harp. It is, therefore, classified as

8127-479: The early-born rose-fingered Dawn came to light', 'thus he/she spoke'), simile , type scenes, ring composition and repetition. These habits aid the extemporizing bard, and are characteristic of oral poetry. For instance, the main words of a Homeric sentence are generally placed towards the beginning, whereas literate poets like Virgil or Milton use longer and more complicated syntactical structures. Homer then expands on these ideas in subsequent clauses; this technique

8256-504: The end, Glassie writes, Kircher should be acknowledged “for his effort to know everything and to share everything he knew, for asking a thousand questions about the world around him, and for getting so many others to ask questions about his answers; for stimulating, as well as confounding and inadvertently amusing, so many minds; for having been a source of so many ideas—right, wrong, half-right, half-baked, ridiculous, beautiful, and all-encompassing.” Kircher's life and research are central to

8385-511: The epics can be derived from anomalies of structure and detail in the surviving versions of the Iliad and Odyssey . These anomalies point to earlier versions of the Iliad in which Ajax played a more prominent role, in which the Achaean embassy to Achilles comprised different characters, and in which Patroclus was actually mistaken for Achilles by the Trojans. They point to earlier versions of

8514-472: The ethnocentric European attitude toward Chinese and native American civilizations: "China was presented not as an unknown barbarian to be defeated but as a prodigal son who should return to the home of the common father". (p. 69) In 1675, he published Arca Noë , the results of his research on the biblical Ark of Noah — following the Counter-Reformation , allegorical interpretation

8643-551: The field turned out to be wrong. He did, however, correctly establish the link between the ancient Egyptian and the Coptic languages, and some commentators regard him as the founder of Egyptology . Kircher was also fascinated with Sinology and wrote an encyclopedia of China , where he revealed the early presence of Nestorian Christians while also attempting to establish links with Egypt and Christianity. Kircher's work in geology included studies of volcanoes and fossils . One of

8772-457: The first recorded drawings of complete bipartite graphs , extending a similar technique used by Llull to visualize complete graphs . Kircher also employed combinatorics in his Arca Musarithmica , an aleatoric music device capable of composing millions of church hymns by combining randomly selected musical phrases. For most of his professional life, Kircher was one of the scientific stars of his world: according to historian Paula Findlen, he

8901-430: The first researchers to observe microbes through a microscope , Kircher was ahead of his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent its spread. Kircher also displayed a keen interest in technology and mechanical inventions; inventions attributed to him include a magnetic clock, various automatons and the first megaphone . The invention of

9030-432: The genesis of the poems, agree that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not produced by the same author, based on "the many differences of narrative manner, theology, ethics, vocabulary, and geographical perspective, and by the apparently imitative character of certain passages of the Odyssey in relation to the Iliad ." Nearly all scholars agree that the Iliad and the Odyssey are unified poems, in that each poem shows

9159-440: The instrument to catch more wind for a louder sound. To this same end, Aeolian harps can be placed in the way of natural wind tunnels or have wind scoops to direct more airflow over the strings. In one case, large metal dishes have even been used as amplification devices. For a building material, metal is generally preferred to wood at this scale due to how metal can withstand the environment for longer, needs less maintenance, and

9288-434: The judge awarded Hesiod the prize; the poet who praised husbandry , he said, was greater than the one who told tales of battles and slaughter. The study of Homer is one of the oldest topics in scholarship, dating back to antiquity. Nonetheless, the aims of Homeric studies have changed over the course of the millennia. The earliest preserved comments on Homer concern his treatment of the gods, which hostile critics such as

9417-489: The last development of ancient Egyptian . For this Kircher has been considered the true "founder of Egyptology", because his work was conducted "before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone rendered Egyptian hieroglyphics comprehensible to scholars". He also recognized the relationship between hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. Between 1650 and 1654, Kircher published four volumes of "translations" of hieroglyphs in

9546-432: The last thinkers who could rightfully claim all knowledge as his domain". Another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to Kircher as "the last Renaissance man ". In A Man of Misconceptions , his 2012 book about Kircher, John Glassie wrote "many of Kircher's actual ideas today seem wildly off-base, if not simply bizarre," but he was "a champion of wonder, a man of awe-inspiring erudition and inventiveness," whose work

9675-535: The later Iron Age during which they were composed; yet the same heroes are cremated (an Iron Age practice) rather than buried (as they were in the Bronze Age). In some parts of the Homeric poems, heroes are described as carrying large shields like those used by warriors during the Mycenaean period , but, in other places, they are instead described carrying the smaller shields that were commonly used during

9804-603: The later additions as superior, the work of a single inspired poet. By around 1830, the central preoccupations of Homeric scholars, dealing with whether or not "Homer" actually existed, when and how the Homeric poems originated, how they were transmitted, when and how they were finally written down, and their overall unity, had been dubbed "the Homeric Question". Following World War I , the Analyst school began to fall out of favor among Homeric scholars. It did not die out entirely, but it came to be increasingly seen as

9933-534: The legendary island of Atlantis including a map with the Latin caption "Situs Insulae Atlantidis, a Mari olim absorpte ex mente Egyptiorum et Platonis Description," translating as "Site of the island of Atlantis, in the sea, from Egyptian sources and Plato's description." In his book Arca Noë , Kircher argued that after the Flood new species were transformed as they moved into different environments, for example, when

10062-425: The lengths, gauges, and types of strings, the character of the wind, and the material of the resonating body. Metal-framed instruments with no sound board produce a music very different from that produced by wind harps with wooden sound boxes and sound boards. There is no percussive aspect to the sound like that produced by a wind chime ; rather crescendos and decrescendos of harmonic frequencies are played in rhythm to

10191-495: The movie The Exorcist . The harp was destroyed in a hurricane, but it was rebuilt and now resides in Hopkinton, New Hampshire . Australian artist, composer and sound sculptor Alan Lamb has created and recorded several very large-scale Aeolian harps, and Roger Winfield's album Windsongs was "created using an orchestra of eight aeolian harps played entirely by the wind." (Discogs) In the spirit of this, in 2003 an Aeolian harp

10320-475: The mystery of the Aeolian harp in a paper published in the Philosophical Magazine in 1915. The effect can sometimes be observed in overhead utility lines, fast enough to be heard or slow enough to be seen. Similar taut wires like non-telescoping radio antennae, ships' anchor lines, and stiff rods also exhibit this phenomenon. The effect results in Aeolian harps only producing overtones . Were

10449-535: The myth of the Trojan War, others that the poem was inspired by multiple similar sieges that took place over the centuries. Most scholars now agree that the Homeric poems depict customs and elements of the material world that are derived from different periods of Greek history. For instance, the heroes in the poems use bronze weapons, characteristic of the Bronze Age in which the poems are set, rather than

10578-416: The other extreme, a few American scholars such as Gregory Nagy see "Homer" as a continually evolving tradition, which grew much more stable as the tradition progressed, but which did not fully cease to continue changing and evolving until as late as the middle of the second century BC. "'Homer" is a name of unknown etymological origin, around which many theories were erected in antiquity. One such linkage

10707-401: The pitch by yielding different overtones depending on its intensity. Other Aeolian harps have differently tuned strings, which enable them to produce chords . Aeolian harps lend themselves to being tuned to a major or minor pentatonic scale and octaves of the notes within, as all intervals in these scales are at least moderately consonant. This way, no matter how the wind strikes the strings,

10836-651: The plot of James Rollin's 2015 novel The Bone Labyrinth . He is also mentioned in The Book of Life , the third book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness . He further appears in two separate episodes in Daniel Kehlmann's novel Tyll (2017). Homer This is an accepted version of this page Homer ( / ˈ h oʊ m ər / ; Ancient Greek : Ὅμηρος [hómɛːros] , Hómēros ; born c.  8th century BCE )

10965-527: The poems were created in the eighth century, they continued to be orally transmitted with considerable revision until they were written down in the sixth century. After textualisation, the poems were each divided into 24 rhapsodes, today referred to as books, and labelled by the letters of the Greek alphabet . Most scholars attribute the book divisions to the Hellenistic scholars of Alexandria , in Egypt. Some trace

11094-429: The poet Xenophanes of Colophon denounced as immoral. The allegorist Theagenes of Rhegium is said to have defended Homer by arguing that the Homeric poems are allegories . The Iliad and the Odyssey were widely used as school texts in ancient Greek and Hellenistic cultures. They were the first literary works taught to all students. The Iliad , particularly its first few books, was far more intently studied than

11223-457: The poet and that our inherited versions of the Iliad and Odyssey were in origin orally dictated texts. Albert Lord noted that the Balkan bards that he was studying revised and expanded their songs in their process of dictating. Some scholars hypothesize that a similar process of revision and expansion occurred when the Homeric poems were first written down. Other scholars hold that, after

11352-486: The poetry of Hesiod and that it must have been composed around 660–650 BC at the earliest, with the Odyssey up to a generation later. He also interprets passages in the Iliad as showing knowledge of historical events that occurred in the ancient Near East during the middle of the seventh century BC, including the destruction of Babylon by Sennacherib in 689 BC and the Sack of Thebes by Ashurbanipal in 663/4 BC. At

11481-420: The preface to his translation of the Iliad , Alexander Pope acknowledges that Homer has always been considered the "greatest of poets". From antiquity to the present day, Homeric epics have inspired many famous works of literature, music, art, and film. The question of by whom, when, where and under what circumstances the Iliad and Odyssey were composed continues to be debated. Scholars generally regard

11610-432: The rabbis in the court of King Solomon ). Kircher stressed that exhibitors should take great care to inform spectators that such images were purely naturalistic, and not magical. Kircher constructed a magnetic clock, which he explained in his Magnes (1641). The clock had been invented by another Jesuit, Fr. Linus of Liege , and was described by an acquaintance of Line's in 1634. Kircher's patron Peiresc had claimed that

11739-600: The reign of Pisistratus is referenced by the first-century BCE Roman orator Cicero and is also referenced in a number of other surviving sources, including two ancient Lives of Homer . From around 150 BCE, the texts of the Homeric poems found in papyrus fragments exhibit much less variation, and the text seems to have become relatively stable. After the establishment of the Library of Alexandria , Homeric scholars such as Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium and in particular Aristarchus of Samothrace helped establish

11868-418: The resulting music will be euphonious. There are more challenges with designing a larger Aeolian harp. For one, a sound chamber at such sizes takes much more material to make. Instead of making a large sound chamber, designers of Aeolian harps approaching seven meters in height use different mechanisms to increase the volume of their instruments. At these heights, they usually prefer upright designs, which allow

11997-412: The sack of Troy was dated to 1184 BC. By the nineteenth century, there was widespread scholarly skepticism that the Trojan War had ever happened and that Troy had even existed, but in 1873 Heinrich Schliemann announced to the world that he had discovered the ruins of Homer's Troy at Hisarlik in modern Turkey. Some contemporary scholars think the destruction of Troy VIIa c. 1220 BC was the origin of

12126-530: The setting for a Borges story that was never written", while Umberto Eco has written about Kircher in his novel The Island of the Day Before , as well as in his non-fiction works The Search for the Perfect Language and Serendipities . In the historical novel Imprimatur by Monaldi & Sorti (2002), Kircher plays a major role. Shortly after his death, some travelers are locked up in

12255-482: The simple hieroglyphic text ḏd Wsr ("Osiris says") as "The treachery of Typhon ends at the throne of Isis; the moisture of nature is guarded by the vigilance of Anubis" Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge mentioned Kircher as the foremost of writers who "pretended to have found the key to the hieroglyphics" and called his translations in Oedipus Aegyptiacus "utter nonsense, but as they were put forth in

12384-679: The site of Saint Eustace 's vision of a crucifix in a stag's horns. He raised money to pay for the church's reconstruction as the Santuario della Mentorella  [ it ] , and his heart was buried in the church upon his death. Kircher published many substantial books on a wide variety of subjects such as Egyptology , geology , and music theory . His syncretic approach disregarded conventional boundaries between disciplines: his Magnes , for example, ostensibly discussed magnetism , but also explored other modes of attraction such as gravity and love . Perhaps Kircher's best-known work

12513-516: The society depicted by Homer is based on his own or one which was, even at the time of the poems' composition, known only as legends. The Homeric epics are largely set in the east and center of the Mediterranean , with some scattered references to Egypt , Ethiopia and other distant lands, in a warlike society that resembles that of the Greek world slightly before the hypothesized date of the poems' composition. In ancient Greek chronology,

12642-450: The spread of disease, such as isolation, quarantine , burning clothes worn by the infected and wearing facemasks to prevent the inhalation of germs . In 1646, Kircher published Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae , concerning the display of images on a screen using an apparatus similar to the magic lantern developed by Christiaan Huygens and others. Kircher described the construction of a "catoptric lamp" that used reflection to project images on

12771-591: The story and of the origin of the manuscript itself exists. In his Polygraphia Nova (1663), Kircher proposed an artificial universal language . On a visit to southern Italy in 1638, the ever-curious Kircher was lowered into the crater of Vesuvius , then on the brink of eruption, to examine its interior. He was also intrigued by the subterranean rumbling which he heard at the Strait of Messina . His geological and geographical investigations culminated in his Mundus Subterraneus of 1664, in which he suggested that

12900-506: The strings of the piano. The Aeolian harp's sounds have also been sought after in more recent music. In 1972, Chuck Hancock and Harry Bee recorded a giant 30-foot-tall (9.1 m) Aeolian harp designed and built by 22-year-old Thomas Ward McCain on a hilltop in Chelsea, Vermont . United released their double LP titled The Wind Harp: Song from the Hill . An excerpt of this recording appears in

13029-449: The strings plucked, they would produce the fundamental frequency in addition to several overtones. When the string oscillates due to the wind, though, it always does so in fractions such as halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, and so on. This naturally produces overtones, most commonly the third, octave , and twelfth, without resulting in the fundamental frequency being played. An Aeolian harp can, in concept, be constructed from as little as

13158-446: The tails of cats, which would yowl to specified pitches , but was never constructed. In Phonurgia Nova , literally "new methods of sound production", Kircher examined acoustic phenomena. He explored the use of horns and cones in amplifying sound for architectural applications. He also examined echoes in rooms using domes of different shapes, including the muffling effect of an elliptical dome from Heidelberg. In one section he explored

13287-529: The ten-year journey of Odysseus , king of Ithaca , back to his home after the fall of Troy. The epics depict man's struggle, the Odyssey especially so as Odysseus perseveres through punishment of the gods. The poems are in Homeric Greek , also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence

13416-485: The therapeutic effects of music in tarantism , a theme from southern Italy. Although Kircher's work was not mathematically based, he did develop systems for generating and counting all combinations of a finite collection of objects (i.e., a finite set ), based on the previous work of Ramon Llull . His methods and diagrams are discussed in Ars Magna Sciendi, sive Combinatoria , 1669. They include what may be

13545-484: The time when the poems were written in the early Iron Age. In the Iliad 10.260–265, Odysseus is described as wearing a helmet made of boar's tusks . Such helmets were not worn in Homer's time, but were commonly worn by aristocratic warriors between 1600 and 1150 BC. The decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris and continued archaeological investigation has increased modern scholars' understanding of

13674-524: The title "Master of a Hundred Arts". He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College , where he set up a wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades. Kircher claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptian language , but most of his assumptions and translations in

13803-419: The two poems as the works of separate authors. It is thought that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BCE. Many accounts of Homer's life circulated in classical antiquity , the most widespread that he was a blind bard from Ionia , a region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey. Modern scholars consider these accounts legendary . Today, only

13932-471: The wall of a darkened room. Although Kircher did not invent the device, he improved it, and suggested methods by which exhibitors could use his device. Much of the significance of his work arises from Kircher's rational approach towards the demystification of projected images. Previously, such images had been used in Europe to mimic supernatural appearances (Kircher himself cites the use of displayed images by

14061-495: The widespread praise of Homer as the epitome of wisdom, François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac wrote a scathing attack on the Homeric poems, declaring that they were incoherent, immoral, tasteless, and without style, that Homer never existed, and that the poems were hastily cobbled together by incompetent editors from unrelated oral songs. Fifty years later, the English scholar Richard Bentley concluded that Homer did exist but that he

14190-498: The winds. As Aeolian harps are played without human intervention, the sounds they produce are an example of aleatoric music . Aside from varying in material, Aeolian harps come in many different shapes. Some resemble standard harps , others box zithers , others lyres , and, in one monument, a fiddle . More modern Aeolian harps can more closely resemble lawn ornaments than any traditional string instrument. The unifying characteristic between all Aeolian harps, regardless of appearance,

14319-600: Was ordained to the priesthood in 1628 and became professor of ethics and mathematics at the University of Würzburg , where he also taught Hebrew and Syriac. Beginning in 1628, he began to show an interest in Egyptian hieroglyphs. In 1631, while still at Würzburg , Kircher allegedly had a prophetic vision of bright light and armed men with horses in the city. Würzburg was attacked shortly afterwards and captured, leading to Kircher being accorded respect for predicting

14448-495: Was "because of Kircher's work that scientists knew what to look for when interpreting the Rosetta stone". Another scholar of ancient Egypt, Erik Iversen, concluded: It is, therefore, Kircher's incontestable merit that he was the first to have discovered the phonetic value of an Egyptian hieroglyph. From a humanistic as well as an intellectual point of view Egyptology may very well be proud of having Kircher as its founder. Kircher

14577-432: Was "the first scholar with a global reputation". His importance was twofold: to the results of his own experiments and research he added information gleaned from his correspondence with over 760 scientists, physicians and above all his fellow Jesuits in all parts of the globe. The Encyclopædia Britannica calls him a "one-man intellectual clearing house". His works, illustrated to his orders, were extremely popular, and he

14706-582: Was also actively involved in the erection of the Pamphilj obelisk , and added "hieroglyphs" of his design in the blank areas. Rowland 2002 concluded that Kircher made use of Pythagorean principles to read hieroglyphs of the Pamphili Obelisk , and used the same form of interpretation when reading scripture. Kircher had an early interest in China , telling his superior in 1629 that he wished to become

14835-462: Was an Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey , two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature . Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history. Homer's Iliad centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War . The Odyssey chronicles

14964-532: Was an obscure, prehistoric oral poet whose compositions bear little relation to the Iliad and the Odyssey as they have been passed down. According to Bentley, Homer "wrote a Sequel of Songs and Rhapsodies, to be sung by himself for small Earnings and good Cheer at Festivals and other Days of Merriment; the Ilias he wrote for men, and the Odysseis for the other Sex. These loose songs were not collected together in

15093-509: Was blind (taking as self-referential a passage describing the blind bard Demodocus ), that he resided at Chios , that he was the son of the river Meles and the nymph Critheïs , that he was a wandering bard, that he composed a varying list of other works (the "Homerica"), that he died either in Ios or after failing to solve a riddle set by fishermen, and various explanations for the name "Homer" ( Ὅμηρος , Hómēros ). Another tradition from

15222-529: Was brought to feed carnivores and what the daily schedule of feeding and caring for animals must have been. Kircher was sent the Voynich Manuscript in 1666 by Johannes Marcus Marci in the hope of Kircher being able to decipher it. The manuscript remained in the Collegio Romano until Victor Emmanuel II of Italy annexed the Papal States in 1870, though scepticism as to the authenticity of

15351-490: Was caught and nearly hanged by a party of Protestant soldiers. From 1622 to 1624 Kircher was sent to begin his regency period in Koblenz as a teacher. This was followed by assignment to Heiligenstadt , where he taught mathematics , Hebrew and Syriac , and produced a show of fireworks and moving scenery for the visiting Elector Archbishop of Mainz , showing early evidence of his interest in mechanical devices . He

15480-561: Was constructed at the Burning Man festival. The Aeolian harp is especially common in modern music being sampled as a backing track for its eerie, exotic, and unique sound. On his album Dis (1976), jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek used as a background sound recordings of an Aeolian harp, designed and built by Sverre Larssen (1916–1983), that was situated at a Norwegian fjord. British producer Bonobo also sampled an Aeolian harp on his album Black Sands (2010). In recent history,

15609-497: Was erected to honour the fiddling traditions and folk music of the region's Celtic population. This fiddle, unveiled in 2005, is titled Fidhael Mhor a' Ceilidh , or, in English, "Big Fiddle of the Ceilidh ", "Ceilidh" roughly translating from Gaelic into "visit." This fiddle is so large it can be seen by ships coming into harbour on the island. The largest Aeolian harp in the world dwarfs even Sydney's. In South San Francisco stands

15738-477: Was expected to win, and answered all of Hesiod's questions and puzzles with ease. Then, each of the poets was invited to recite the best passage from their work. Hesiod selected the beginning of Works and Days : "When the Pleiades born of Atlas  ... all in due season". Homer chose a description of Greek warriors in formation, facing the foe, taken from the Iliad . Though the crowd acclaimed Homer victor,

15867-515: Was giving way to the study of the Old Testament as literal truth among Scriptural scholars. Kircher analyzed the dimensions of the Ark; based on the number of species known to him (excluding insects and other forms thought to arise spontaneously ), he calculated that overcrowding would not have been a problem. He also discussed the logistics of the Ark voyage, speculating on whether extra livestock

15996-499: Was largely neglected until the late 20th century. One writer attributes his rediscovery to the similarities between his eclectic approach and postmodernism . As few of Kircher's works have been translated, the contemporary emphasis has been on their aesthetic qualities rather than their actual content, and a succession of exhibitions have highlighted the beauty of their illustrations. Historian Anthony Grafton has said that "the staggeringly strange dark continent of Kircher's work [is]

16125-738: Was read "by the smartest minds of the time." Kircher was born on 2 May in either 1601 or 1602 (he himself did not know) in Geisa , Buchonia , near Fulda ( Thuringia , Germany ). From his birthplace, he took the epithets Bucho, Buchonius and Fuldensis which he sometimes added to his name. He attended the Jesuit College in Fulda from 1614 to 1618, when he entered the novitiate of the Society. The youngest of nine children, Kircher studied volcanoes owing to his passion for rocks and eruptions. He

16254-401: Was taught Hebrew by a rabbi in addition to his studies at school. He studied philosophy and theology at Paderborn , but fled to Cologne in 1622 to escape advancing Protestant forces. On the journey, he narrowly escaped death after falling through the ice crossing the frozen Rhine — one of several occasions on which his life was endangered. Later, traveling to Heiligenstadt , he

16383-548: Was the first scientist to be able to support himself through the sale of his books. His near-exact contemporary, the English philosopher-physician, Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82) collected his books avidly while his eldest son Edward Browne in 1665 visited the Jesuit priest resident at Rome. Towards the end of Kircher's life, however, his stock fell, as the rationalist Cartesian approach began to dominate (Descartes himself described Kircher as "more quacksalver than savant"). Kircher

16512-789: Was the misconception that hieroglyphics were "picture writing" and that future translators should look for symbolic meaning in the pictures. The first modern study of hieroglyphics came with Piero Valeriano Bolzani 's Hieroglyphica (1556). Kircher was the most famous of the "decipherers" between ancient and modern times and the most famous Egyptologist of his day. In his Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta (1643), Kircher called hieroglyphics "this language hitherto unknown in Europe, in which there are as many pictures as letters, as many riddles as sounds, in short as many mazes to be escaped from as mountains to be climbed". While some of his notions are long discredited, portions of his work have been valuable to later scholars, and Kircher helped pioneer Egyptology as

16641-449: Was to the Greek ὅμηρος ( hómēros ' hostage ' or ' surety ' ). The explanations suggested by modern scholars tend to mirror their position on the overall Homeric Question. Nagy interprets it as "he who fits (the song) together". West has advanced both possible Greek and Phoenician etymologies. Scholars continue to debate questions such as whether the Trojan War actually took place – and if so when and where – and to what extent

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