Musicianship and the masteries of the stars: music and musicians in the Liber Nativitatum

Abstract

AbstractThis article shines a light on the musical contents of a “book of births”, the Liber Nativitatum or Albubather, written by the Persian Astrologer Abu Bakr al‐Hassan ibn al‐Khasib in the ninth century, translated into Latin at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and published in Venice in 1501. “Books of births” served to show how an individual's fortune and personal traits could be ascertained from the position of the celestial bodies throughout the individual's gestation period. A significant portion of these traits pertain to loquacity, hearing, musical skill and the likelihood of a musical profession. Thanks to the connotations each celestial body bore – positive and negative – and the traits they are described as imparting, the Liber Nativitatum makes it possible to identify the skills and traits requisite for good musical performance, as well as those traits which might inhibit it.