Esperienza, Teacher of All Things

Abstract

Abstract This paper reexamines the music and experimental science of Vincenzo Galilei through the lens of artisanal epistemology. Where previous scholars have questioned the veracity of Vincenzo’s experiments, I unpack how Vincenzo himself understood and utilized esperienza. Arguing against Cohen and Prins especially, I assert that Vincenzo’s esperienza functioned as a rational-empirical way of studying nature. I then show how esperienza played analogous roles in his science and practice. By treating his music as artisanal epistemology, I portray Vincenzo’s musical composition, like his experimentalism, as a form of natural knowledge-making. He deployed esperienza in science to capture knowledge of consonance and in art to express knowledge of music’s effects on passions. Finally, I situate Vincenzo within broader humanistic and artistic trends and consider his influence on Galileo. This study explores Renaissance music at the nexus of mathematical theory and empirical and instrumental practice while reinterpreting the early modern concept of esperienza.