That the Senario Number Comprehends Many Things of Nature and of Art

The Senario in the Heavens and Nature

Beginning therefore from the superior natural things, we always see in the Zodiac twelve signs, of which six are always raised above our hemisphere while the other six remain in the other below us. There are also six deviations of the six Planets coursing through the width of the Zodiac, straying now to one side and now to the other from the Ecliptic — namely Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. Six are the circles placed in the heavens: the Arctic, the Antarctic, the two Tropics (that of Cancer and that of Capricorn), the Equinoctial, and the Ecliptic.

And here below are six fundamental qualities of the Elements — Sharpness, Rarity, and Motion, and their opposites, Obtuseness, Density, and Rest. Six are the natural offices without which no thing has being: Magnitude, Colour, Figure, Interval, State, and Motion. Six again are the species of motions: Generation, Corruption, Growth, Diminution, Alteration, and Change of place. And six, according to Plato, are the differences of Positions or Situations: Up, Down, Before, Behind, Right, and Left.

Six lines enclose the triangular Pyramid; and six surfaces enclose the square solid. Six equilateral triangles greater than the inscribed contain the circular figure, indicating its perfection; and six times the circumference of any circle is measured by the straight measure that measures from the centre to the circumference itself — whence it arises that many call that geometric instrument a Sexant, which by many others is called a Compass.

The Senario in Human Life and Knowledge

Six are the degrees of man: Essence, Life, Motion, Sense, Memory, and Intellect. Six are his ages: Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence, Youth, Old Age, and Decrepitude. And six are the Ages of the World, which according to some correspond to the Senario — from which number Lactantius Firmianus took occasion for his error, saying that the world would not last more than six thousand years, setting down that one day of the Lord is a thousand years, citing as testimony what the Psalm says: “A thousand years before thine eyes are as yesterday when it is past.”

And so as not to recount everything that could be said, lest I go on too long, I shall say only that six are those which philosophers call the Transcendentals — Being, One, True, Good, Something, and Thing — and six are among the Logicians the Modes of propositions: True, False, Possible, Impossible, Necessary, and Contingent.

The Senario in Poetry and Philosophy

For the perfection of such a number, the great Orpheus (as Plato narrates) wished that the Hymns should terminate in the sixth generation — since he believed that of created things nothing could be sung further, every perfection being terminated in such a number. Whence the Poets also wished that the verse of the Heroic Poem — as that which they judged more perfect than any other — should end in the sixth foot.

It is therefore no wonder if by some it is called the Seal of the world; since just as the world has nothing superfluous nor lacks what is necessary, so this number has had such temperament that neither by progression does it extend itself, nor by contraction does it diminish — but holding a certain moderation, it is neither superfluous nor by its nature diminished. For which reason it has obtained the name not only of Perfect, but of Imitator of Virtue.

This is called the Analogous number — that is, the proportionate — from its reconstitution by its own parts, in the manner I have shown above: for those parts generate such a number as is similar to its generator. Beyond this it is called the Circular number, since multiplied by itself the product of such multiplication ends in the Senario; and that product again multiplied by the Senario (even if one were to proceed to infinity) the result ends in it.

The Senario in Music

All this I have wished to say in order to demonstrate that, Nature having marvelously enclosed many things in the Senary number, she has wished also with the same number to embrace the greater part of those things found in Music. For first (as will be seen at other times) six are the species of musical notes among which every musical concord is contained — namely Unison, Equisone, Consonant, Emmele, Dissone, and Ecmele. Then six are those which the Practical musicians call consonances — five simple and elementary ones, which are (as I have shown above) the Diapason, the Diapente, the Diatessaron, the Ditone, the Semiditone, and one principle of them which they call the Unison — although this is called a consonance improperly, as we shall see at other times. Beyond this, there were found among the ancient Musicians six species of harmony in use — namely the Dorian, the Phrygian, the Lydian, the Mixolydian or Locrian, the Aeolian, and the Iadian or Ionian. And among modern musicians six principal Modes in Music called Authentic, and six non-principal ones called Plagal.

It would be lengthy to wish to recount one by one all those things which are terminated in the Senary number; but contenting ourselves for now with what has been said, we shall come to its properties — being necessary to our purpose.