Boethius and Nicornachus: An Essay Concerning the Sources of De institutione musica

Abstract

These ago, sentences are representative of Francois of most Auguste scholarship Gevaert, concerning written a Boethius' century ago, are representativ of most scholarsh p concerning Boe hius' institutione musica during the last one hundred years. While the prejudice of recensior ergo deterior has been forsaken in most areas of classical and medieval studies, it seems to hang on with dogged tenacity in critical literature concerning Boethius' musical treatise. The only musicological study which has expressly challenged Gevaert is Henri Potiron's Boece, Theoricien de la Musique grecque (Paris, i960). But Potiron's study is principally expository in character and does not systematically deal with the question of Boethius' sources. The most thorough study concerning sources of Boethius1 musical treatise, Ubaldo Pizzani's Studi sulle fonti del De Institutione Musica di Boezio ,2 adopts Gevaerťs attitude to the point of even citing the century-old work concerning fundamental theoretical matters. The attitude leads him to a somewhat distorted picture of the relationship between Boethius and his sources.3 Hence the present study. I begin this inquiry with two underlying assumptions. First, Boethius