The notion of a harmonious universe was taught by Pythagoras as early as the sixth century BC, and remained a basic premise in Western philosophy, science, and art almost to our own day. In Touches of Sweet Harmony, S. K. Heninger first recounts the legendary life of Pythagoras, describes his school at Croton, and discusses the materials from which the Renaissance drew its information about Pythagorean doctrine.

The second section of the book reconstructs the many facets of this doctrine, and the final section shows its influence on Renaissance poetics. Professor Heninger's magisterial work introduces the reader not only to Pythagoras but to a host of other classical, medieval, and Renaissance figures as well- from Plato and Aristotle through St. Augustine and Macrobius down to Sidney and Spenser.

Simon Kahn “Tim” Heninger Jr. (1922-2008), was a University Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill known for taking a life-long interest in the lives of his former colleagues and students, and for his altruism in society. He is the author of The Cosmographical Glass: Renaissance Diagrams of the Universe, The Handbook of Renaissance Meteorology, and Sidney and Spenser: The Poet as Maker.