Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Alix
Alix. Bonnet, in his "Histoire de in Musique," gives the following extraordinary account of a mathematician, mechanician, and musician, named Alix, who lived at Aix, in Provence, about the middle of the seventeenth century. Alix, after many years' study and labor, succeeded in constructing an automaton figure, having the shape of a human skeleton, which, by means of a concealed mechanism, played, or had the appearance of playing, on the guitar. The artist, after having tuned in perfect unison two guitars, placed one of them in the hands of the skeleton, in the position proper for playing, and on a calm summer's evening, having thrown open the win. dew of his apartment, he fixed the skeleton, with the guitar in its hands, in a position where it could be seen from the street. He then, taking the other instrument, seated himself in an obscure corner of the room, and commenced playing a piece of music, the passages of which were faith-Fully repeated or echoed by the guitar held by the skeleton, at the same time that the movement of its wooden fingers, as if really executing the music, completed the illusion. This strange musical feat drew crowds around the house of Alix, and created the greatest astonishment ; but, alas for the ill-fated artist ! this sentiment was soon changed in the minds of the ignorant multitude into the most superstitious dread. A rumor arose that Alix was a sorcerer, and in league with the devil. He was arrested by order of the parliament of Provence, and sent before their criminal court, La Chambre de la Tournelle, to be tried on the capital charge of magic or witchcraft. In vain the ingenious but unfortunate artist sought to convince his judges that the only means used to give apparent vitality to the fingers of the skeleton were wheels, springs, pulleys, and other equally unmagical contrivances, and that the marvellous result produced was nothing more criminal than the solution of a problem in mechanics. , His explanations and demonstrations were either not understood, or failed of convincing his stupid and bigoted judges, and he was condemned as a sorcerer and magician. The iniquitous judgment was confirmed by the parliament of Provence, which sentenced him to be burned alive in the principal square of the city, together with the equally innocent automaton figure, the supposed accomplice in his magical practices. This infamous sentence was carried into execution in the year 1664, to the great satisfaction and edification of all the faithful and devout inhabitants of Aix.