Bridging Reason and Perception: Searching for the Arguments of Ptolemaïs of Cyrene in Works on Music Theory From the Italian Renaissance

Author

• Sean Robert Denby

Date

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Music

Department

Music

Committee Chair

Janet Page

Committee Member

Kenneth Kreitner

Committee Member

Vanessa Rogers

Abstract

Ptolemaïs of Cyrene is the earliest known female music theorist from antiquity. Her lost work, Pythagorean Elements of Music, is a substantive addition to the debate on the differences in approaches to reason and perception in harmonic science from Pythagorean and Aristoxenian doctrines. It only survives in three quotations in Porphyry of Tyre’s Commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics, a work known and used by humanists and music theorists alike in the Italian Renaissance. Considering that numerous individuals in Renaissance Italy—in particular, Franchino Gaffurio, Gioseffo Zarlino, and Vincenzo Galilei—had access to Porphyry’s Commentary, it is a mystery as to why she does not appear by name in the treatises and communications between these Italian music theorists in the Renaissance. This thesis is an attempt to analyze whether her ideas appear in these treatises and communications, hidden in these texts without her name being mentioned.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.”

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest.

Notes

Open Access

Recommended Citation

Denby, Sean Robert, "Bridging Reason and Perception: Searching for the Arguments of Ptolemaïs of Cyrene in Works on Music Theory From the Italian Renaissance" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive. 3918.
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/etd/3918