Free Republic

Today is the feast day of Neoplatonic philosopher and Christian theologian Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius), author of The Consolation of Philosophy, and according to tradition martyred in 524 or 525, or possibly 526, by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric. Well, maybe. We know roughly as much about why Boethius was killed as when or how. We do know that he came from a line of prominent Romans (including a couple of popes back there, depending on who you count as “pope”), was himself consul in 510, and his sons were rather astonishingly joint consuls in 522. At that time he...

On Boethius and Cassiodorus VATICAN CITY, March 12, 2008 - The General Audience today took place once again in two places. Here is a translation of the greeting by the Holy Father at St. Peter's Basilica before he proceeded to Paul VI Hall for the catechesis. Dear brothers and sisters! I am happy to welcome you to this Basilica and I address my heartfelt greeting to this, your festive assembly, predominantly composed of young students. I greet particularly representatives of the Folklore Groups of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the students of the city of Paola and students of various scholastic institutes from...

THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES, OR THE METAPHYSICS OF MUSIC . . . According to tradition, the harmonic structure of music was discovered by Pythagoras about the fifth century B.C. Pythagoras experimented with a stretched piece of cord. When plucked, the cord sounded a certain note. When halved in length and plucked again, the cord sounded a higher note completely consonant with the first. In fact, it was the same note at a higher pitch. Pythagoras had discovered the ration 2:1, of the octave. Further experiments, plucking the strings two-thirds of its original length produced a perfect fifth in the...