The “Other” Localization: XIX Century French Neurophysiological Models for the Seat of the Musical Faculty in the Brain

At the beginning of the second half of the XIX century, Paul Broca’s discoveries on the localization of the seat of the articulated language faculty laid the foundations for modern neuropsychology, confirming the localizationistic hypothesis to the detriment of previous theories of mind-body interaction. This epoch also recorded the first scientific observations on the relationships between music and the nervous system: in the present essay, we trace the genesis and the history of the models debated by the French scientific community of the XIX century, analyzing them through the works of the most famous authors of that period, and reflecting on their implications for subsequent developments in the psychology and neuroscience of music.