L'Academie de Poesie et de Musique was the first French academy officially instituted by royal decree. In 1570, Charles IX gave Jean-Antoine de Baïf and Joachim Thibault de Courville permission to found an academy that would endeavor to bring into use "both the kind of poetry and the measure and rule of music anciently used by the Greeks and Romans" (Yates,1947,p.21). Baïf and Courville had already been working toward this end, some three years before the royal decree, and had completed some attempts at "measured verses set to measured music in accordance with or as near as may be with the laws of the masters of music in the good old times" (21).
These scholars turned to all available sources in an attempt to systematically determine the rules which governed the composition of ancient music, but in the absence of extant material evidence, they were forced to theorize on what the modes of ancient music actually sounded like and how they achieved such diverse and wondrous effects (46).
Based on his readings of ancient texts, Baïf believed that the effects of ancient music were dependent on a close union between poetry and music (ibid). He attempted to bring about such a union by experimenting with vers mesurés (measured verse).
In addition to its artistic aims, Baïf's Academy also had an underlying moral objective which was informed by strong Neo-Platonist beliefs. Charles IX was no doubt well acquainted with the writings of Plato and Aristotle that related the powerful moral and psychological effects that music had on men's souls. (see Plato's Laws, Books II and VII,Republic, Book III and Aristotle'sPolitics , Book VIII). He chose to support the work of the academy on political grounds because he hoped that the revival of ancient music and poetry would bring about a moral and spiritual reformation in his kingdom (23).
The humanist belief in the restorative effects of "ancient" music and verse also stems from that Pythagorean philosophy which endeavored to explain the physical universe in terms of harmony and number, and which spoke of a relationship between the harmony of the universe and the structure of the human soul (38).
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