To those living during the Renaissance, an age marked by exploration and self-reliance, the connection between the human and musical pulse must have seemed only natural. Bridging the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, the era’s rebirth or reawakening of human knowledge percolated in fourteenth-century Italy before spilling out across all of Europe in the centuries that followed. Aristotelian arguments, once accepted as authoritative and propagated by medieval scholars, were exposed one by one, throwing wide the door to a reexamination of the world’s workings. Everything, in short, was open for intellectual reevaluation and reconsideration, from ancient Greek and Latin texts, any number of which were then being rediscovered, to the nature of religion, the acceleration of falling bodies, the circulation system or the physics of a vibrating string. Gazing skyward, polymaths probed the heavens and comprehended that while man may have been the measure of all things, Earth was but a cog in the cosmic wheel. This explosion of intellectual and humanistic thought was visible and audible in all aspects of life, from the design of cities and the shapes of its buildings to the paintings, sculptures and music filling the cathedrals and palatial courts.

Of the seemingly infinite variety of ideas born of the fifteenth century, perhaps none exerted stronger influence in a greater variety of disciplines than the printing press. Texts, previously available only in expensive and time-consuming, hand-copied versions could now reach unprecedented numbers of readers. The printing press may have been the brainchild of Germany’s Johannes Gutenberg, but the device was beautifully suited to the flurry of activity thriving in Italy, where an international legion of engineers, philosophers and musicians found themselves in the employ of wealthy courts, including those of the Medici, Este and Gonzaga families, or religious institutions, whether the Vatican or a rural monastery. By the end of the fifteenth century, some two hundred printing presses were operating in Venice alone. Some of the most important work was being done by Aldo Manuzio, whose Aldine Press released more than 150 titles, including ancient Greek and Latin texts of Aristotle, Aristophanes, Homer and Euripides, and his fellow Italians Dante and Petrarch.