Marcus Meibomius


Marcus Meibomius was a Danish scholar. He is best known as a historian of music, as an antiquarian, and as the first librarian at the Denmark's Royal Library. He was also a philologist and mathematician.

Work

Meibomius is best known for his work Antiquae musicae auctores septem of 1652, on ancient Greek music. It printed works, in Greek originals with Latin translation, by Aristoxenos, Cleonides Gaudentius, Nicomachus, Alypius, Bacchius, and Aristides Quintilianus. It is now seen as pioneer scholarship, not supplanted until the twentieth century, and largely comprehensive on the topic. He attempted concert performances reconstructing Greek music.
He wrote also on the Bible and classical triremes. A well-known figure and intellectual of his times, he was considered a polemicist and a somewhat eccentric figure, about whom anecdotes circulated.