St. Isadore of Seville rained as Archbishop of Seville for over 3 decades.

A
scholarly man, St. Isadore was one of the leading historians of the 6
th
century. He was
versed in both Hebrew and Latin and was familiar with the theories of laudius !tolemy
and !ythagoras. !tolemy believed that musical intervals and pitches had an underlying
mathematical structure that resulted with a series of ratios being applied to intervals. It
was also believed that these same mathematical laws governed the planets and heavenly
bodies. Another writing that St. Isadore was probably very familiar with was !lato"s
#$imaeus%, which tal&ed about the harmony of the cosmos. In any case, it could be
deduced that St. Isadore understood that there are fundamental laws that coincide both
with the musical systems and the planetary systems in the universe.
Isadore once said, #'ithout music, there can be no perfect &nowledge, for there is
nothing without it. (or even the universe is said to have been put together with a certain
harmony of sounds, and the very heavens revolve under the guidance of harmony.% It is
the teachings of !lato, !ythagoras and !tolemy that have brought St. Isadore to ma&e this
statement about the world. He is saying that the same laws that e)plain planetary
movement and geometry are closely tied with intervallic ratios in music.
About one thousand years later another important scholar, *ohannes +epler, made
a similar comment about the planets and music. He as&ed, #'hich planet sings soprano,
which alto, which tenor and which bass,% +epler &new what he was tal&ing about when
it came to our solar system. He made discoveries about planetary orbits and distances
that are stilled used today. It is interesting that this huge figure in astronomy would ma&e
the connection between music and the planets. It could have been because of coinciding
ratios he had discovered between certain planets and certain intervals or he could have
been hinting at the possibility of each planet having its own fre-uency that it emits. In
any case, +epler was also commenting on the generally accepted connection between
music, mathematics, and astronomy. Intervals in music such and ma.or seconds and
perfect fifths and octaves all have a ratio when compared to one another. $hese ratios
can be seen in many different regions of our universe. $he most astounding part of it is
that this sort of thin&ing was even commonplace in the 6
th
century before such
astronomical discoveries such as +epler"s had been made.