Phonurgia Nova is a 1673 work by the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It is notable for being the first book ever dedicated entirely to the science of acoustics, and for containing the earliest description of an aeolian harp. It was dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and printed in Kempten by Rudoph Dreherr.
title page of Phonurgia Nova
Illustration of different designs of acoustic tube, from Phonurgia Nova
Frontispiece of Phonurgia Nova
Athanasius Kircher was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his vast range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts". He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College, where he set up a wunderkammer. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades.
Portrait from Mundus Subterraneus (1664)
The Coptic alphabet, from Prodromus Coptus sive aegyptiacus.
Athanasius Kircher, Prodromus Coptus Sive Aegyptiacus, Rome 1636
Frontispiece to Kircher's Oedipus Ægyptiacus; the Sphinx, confronted by Kircher's learning, admits he has solved her riddle.
