Mersenne, Marin
Mersenne, Marin
Mersenne, Marin, eminent French mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist; b. La Soultière, near Oizei, Sept. 8, 1588; d. Paris, Sept. 1, 1648. He studied at the college of Le Mans, then at the Jesuit School at La Flèche (from 1604) and at the Collège Royal and the Sorbonne in Paris from 1609. He began his novitiate at the Nigeon monastery, near Paris (1611), completing it at St. Pierre de Fublaines, near Meaux, where he took holy orders (1612). He then served the Minim monastery at the Paris Place Royale, becoming a deacon and a priest. He taught philosophy (1615–17) and theology (1618) at the Nevers monastery, and then was made correcter there. In 1619 he returned to Paris as conventual of the order. He made 3 trips to Italy between 1640 and 1645. He maintained a correspondence with the leading philosophers and scientists of his time. His writings provide source material of fundamental importance for the history of 17th-century music. An exhaustive edition of his complete correspondence was pubi, in 17 vols. (Paris, 1932–88).
Writings
(all publ. in Paris):Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim (1623); Traité de l’harmonie universelle (1627); Questions harmoniques (1634); Les préludes de l’harmonie universelle (1634); Harmonicorum libri, in quibus agitur de sonorum natura (1635–36); Harmonicorum instrumentorum libri IV (1636; publ. with the preceding as Harmonicorum libri XII, 1648; 2nd ed., 1652); etc.
Bibliography
H. Ludwig, M. M. und seine Musiklehre (Halle and Berlin, 1935); F. Hyde, The Position of M. M. in the History of Music (diss., Yale Univ., 1954).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire