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The Church Fathers · c. 500–510
On the Principles of Music
De Institutione Musica
Boethius · c. 477–524
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What it is
Music treated as a branch of mathematics rather than an art, dividing it into the music of the cosmos, of the human person, and of instruments.
Why it lasted
The standard music textbook of European universities into the eighteenth century, and the source of the medieval quadrivium's account of harmony.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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