Benjamin Stillingfleet, Tartini in iskanje univerzalne harmonije

This paper explores the world of ideas surrounding the English polymath Benjamin Stillingfleet (1702–1771), who published The Principles and Power of Harmony in 1771, a work consisting of translations of portions of Tartini’s Trattato di musica secondo la vera scienza dell’armonia [Treatise on Music according to the True Science of Harmony] with commentaries and notes. In 1760 Stillingfleet and his friend Robert Price had published the Memoirs of the Life of the Late George Frederic Handel to which Stillingfleet contributed footnotes in praise of Tartini. A few years later Stillingfleet and a student of Tartini, the composer Antonín Kammell, belonged to the circle of Thomas Anson of Shugborough, a key patron of the Greek Revival. An enthusiasm for Tartini’s music and philosophy can be seen as part of a wider fascination for music, nature and Universal Harmony, influenced by the ideas of Sir Isaac Newton and Count Algarotti.