Drums and Bells from Musurgia Universalis

This engraving is divided horizontally into two sections. The top panel features two tautly-skinned drums resting on a simple ground line, both featuring star-like geometric rosettes on their sides and tension ropes. The bottom panel shows a desolate landscape with two gnarled, leafless trees from which four large, spherical jingle-style bells are suspended by ropes. Below the trees, a person dressed in period clothing lies face-down on the earth, appearing exhausted or fallen, with a fortress wall visible in the distant background.

This illustration originates from Athanasius Kircher's 'Musurgia Universalis' (1650), a monumental encyclopedic work exploring the mathematical, physical, and philosophical dimensions of music, sound, and the harmony of the spheres within the Jesuit intellectual tradition.