Kircher, Athanasius

Kircher, Athanasius, eminent German scholar; b. Geisa, near Fulda, May 2, 1601; d. Rome, Nov. 27, 1680. He attended a Jesuit school in Fulda (1612–18) and became a novice at the Jesuit college in Paderborn in 1618. He subsequently studied physical sciences and philosophy in Cologne (1622), languages in Koblenz (1623), and theology in Mainz (ordained 1628) before completing his training as a teacher in Speyer (1628–29). From 1629 to 1631 he taught mathematics, philosophy, and oriental languages at the Univ. of Würzburg. In 1631 he went to Avignon, and in 1633 to Vienna as court mathematician to Emperor Ferdiand II; that same year he went to Rome, where he taught at the Collegio Romano. His writings are a curious mixture of scientific speculation and puerile credulity. His principal work is the Latin compendium Musurgia universalis, sive Ars magna consoni et dissoni (Rome, 1650; ed. by W. Goldhan, Leipzig, 1988), one of the most significant treatises on music, most notably for its originality. He also wrote Magnes, sive De arte magnetica (Rome, 1641; 2^nd ed., rev., 1643), Ars magna lucis et umbrae (Rome, 1646), Oedipus aegiptiacus (Rome, 1652-54), Iter exstaticum coeleste (Rome, 1656), Organum mathematicum (Würzburg, 1668; in collaboration with C. Schott), Ars magna sciendi (Amsterdam, 1669), Phourgia nova, sive Conuigium mechanico-physicum artis et naturae (Kenpten, 1673), Tariffa Kircheri-ana (Rome, 1679), and Vita admodum reverendi P. Athanasii Kirchen S] viri toto orbe celebra tissimi (MS).

Bibliography

U. Scharlau, A. K. (1601–1680) als Musikschriftsteller (Marburg, 1969).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire