Quadrivium

Number, geometry, music, and cosmology — the four disciplines the ancients considered the foundation of all knowledge.

Quadrivium, edited by John Martineau and produced by Wooden Books, gathers the four classical liberal arts of the medieval university into a single beautifully designed volume. These are not separate subjects. They are four expressions of the same underlying order — the mathematical structure of reality as understood from Pythagoras through the Renaissance.

Inside:

• Number — arithmetic as the study of pure quantity
• Geometry — number in space, from Euclid to the Platonic solids
• Music — number in time, ratio, and harmonic proportion
• Cosmology — number in space and time, the structure of the heavens

Illustrated throughout with diagrams, charts, and geometric constructions. A reference work and a meditation on the unity of knowledge.