The Bronze Dial That Was Counting the Wrong Year

The Bronze Dial That Was Counting the Wrong Year

The most famous object in the history of computing is smaller than a shoebox, drowned in a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera around 65 BC, and corroded into 82 fragments. For most of the time it has been studied, the large bronze disc on its front face has been...
The Copyist Who Was Holding the Receipt

The Copyist Who Was Holding the Receipt

There is a thin manuscript in the Royal Library of Belgium, in Brussels, that has been sitting on a musicologist's desk for thirty-three years. It is anonymous, undated, and unrepentantly hard to read. Two chaconnes for organ — one in D minor, one in G minor —...