Methods of enchantment: Examining the practical instructions of Ficino's musical magic

Despite extensive scholarship already conducted on the musical magic of Marsilio Ficino, little attention has been given to the practical instructions set forth in his De vita coelitus comparanda. This paper examines Ficino's rules for constructing and performing astrologically-effective music, drawing from both pre- and post-Ficinian texts to create a cross-section of knowledge, one to which Renaissance magicians would have had access and used in their own ritual performances of Ficino's planetary songs.