Porfirio come fonte di trattati musicali frammentari. Il "Commentario" agli "Harmonica" di Claudio Tolemeo

This paper focuses on some significant features of Porphyry’s Commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics concerning the massive presence of quotations of passages from otherwise unknown musical treatises and Porphyry’s own way of dealing with his sources. A holistic analysis of the work reveals not only extraordinary respect for the form of the texts quoted, but also how Porphyry uses them to develop a coherent line of enquiry, focusing on the debate on the nature of sound (quantitative or qualitative) and the role of reason and perception in describing musical sounds and intervals as accurately as possible.