Clergy and scholars fought priority disputes over the speaking trumpet’s invention

Evidence

Kircher vigorously claimed priority after Morland’s 1671 paper appeared, citing his Musurgia Universalis published 20 years earlier, and also the “tuba stentorophonica” with which he called his congregation to worship at St. Eustace’s shrine, both long before Morland’s claim. Sensing a lost battle for priority anyway, Kircher published Phonurgia Nova in 1673, citing his earlier work and giving many new examples of his ideas. For good measure, Kircher referenced a much earlier horn, the ancient Horn of Alexander, ca. 300 BCE, documented in Secreta Aristotelis ad Alexandrum Magnum, found in the Vatican Library. According to its anonymous author, the horn enabled Alexander to call his soldiers from a distance of 10 or 12 miles (figure 7.12). This is an old academic trick: if a contemporary gets credit for your idea, then point out it was in fact invented much earlier by an unimpeachable authority! — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 568

Categorization

• CANDY: A 17th-century academic priority fight with a 300 BCE trumped-up citation — great trivia about scholarly one-upmanship.
• SHARE: Eric J. Heller fans or anyone into sound history would enjoy the Kircher vs. Morland horn squabble.