De incertitudine & vanitate omnium scientiarum & artium liber, lectu plane jucundus & elegans - Agrippa von Nettesheim, Heinrich Cornelius 1486?-1535 (Frankfurt Plener, 1693)
Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486-1535) was a traveling polygraph who fought as a soldier for Emperor Maximilian I and who had an interest in occult sciences. This book, a skeptical satire on the condition of science, influenced Montaigne, Descartes and Goethe. A Dutch translation entitled 'Van de onzekerheid en ijdelheid der wetenschappen en konsten' was published in Rotterdam in 1661.
Emblematic frontispiece engraving depicting a trumpet-playing angel, a flute-playing baby seated on a skull, and a stillife of books, a score, instruments (a lute and viola da gamba), and a harness.
Agrippa inveighs against music at pages 82-90
Originally published in 1530
Cum adjecto indice Capitum. Accedunt duo ejusdem Auctoris libelli; quorum unus est de Nobilitate & præcellentia fœminei sexus, ejusdemq; supra virilem eminentia; Alter de matrimonio seu conjugio, lectu etiam jucundissimi
Keywords: 16th Century (1501-1600); 17th Century (1601-1700); Philosophy; Ethics; Science; Hermeticism; Satire; Gender; Music criticism; Germany