Cassiodorus, Flavius Magnus Aurelius

views updated

Cassiodorus, Flavius Magnus Aurelius

Roman historian, statesman, and monk; b. Scyllacium (Squillace), Bruttii, c.485; d. Vivarese, Calabria, c.580. He held various civil offices under Theodoric and Athalaric until C.540. He founded the monasteries of Castellum and Vivarium; at the latter, he wrote his De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium litterarum; the section treating of music, Institutiones musicae, a valuable source, is printed in Gerbert’s Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissi-mum (vol. 1, 1784); a partial reproduction is to be found in Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History (N.Y., 1950).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

More From encyclopedia.com