Research Center for Music Iconography, The Graduate Center, City University of

New York
Music-Making Angels in Italian Renaissance Painting: Symbolism and Reality
Author(s): Katherine Powers
Source: Music in Art, Vol. 29, No. 1/2, Music in Art: Iconography as a Source for Music
History Volume I (SpringFall 2004), pp. 52-63
Published by: Research Center for Music Iconography, The Graduate Center, City University of New
York
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Katherine
Powers,
Music-Making Angels
in Italian Renaissance
Painting
:
Symbolism
and
Reality
1. Giovanni
Bellini,
Madonna and Child enthroned between SS. Francis
, John
the
Baptist
, Job , Dominic,
Sebastian
, Lowz's,
and
angels (1478-80).
Oil on
panel,
471
x
258
cm.
Venice,
Accademia di Belle
Arti,
cat. no. 38.
52
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Music in Art
XXIX/1-2 (2004)
Music-Making Angels in Italian Renaissance Painting:
Symbolism and Reality
Katherine Powers
California State
University,
Fullerton
Giovanni Bellini' s San Giobbe
altarpiece (Venice, Accademia)
from about
1488,
depicts
the
Virgin Mary,
in the
highest pictorial plane,
seated on the throne with the Christ child in her
lap; they
are flanked
sym-
metrically by
six saints and in the
foreground,
at the throne's
foot,
sit three
angels making
music
[fig. 1].
Delicate
though
serious,
the scene is attentive to the music's details: the
angels
hold their instruments
appro-
priately, eyes
concentrated,
and two
angels
look
up
as if
projecting
the
singing
voice,
while the other watches
the
right
hand for careful
performance. Charming angel
musicians such as these have adorned
religious
painting
in
Italy
from the
trecento,
populating
not
only
the narrative stories of the
Nativity
of
Christ,
Assum-
ption,
and Coronation of the
Virgin,
but also the iconic
altarpieces
of the Madonna Enthroned.
Angel
musi-
cians are the most numerous musical
performers depicted
in late Medieval and Renaissance
art,
and their
stunning grace
and believable
performance
have made them attractive
study,
as scholars seek further
understanding
of
performance practice.
Ever read to
promote
music
iconography
as a useful
source,
Emanuel
Winternitz saw the
depictions
of musical instruments as an
"important
and not
yet systematically exploited
reservoir of information".1
Winternitz,
for
instance,
examined the
angels
in the 1535 Saronno fresco
by
Gaudenzio Ferrari to
temper thought
on the evolution of the violin.2
Furthermore,
Mary
Remnant's,
Ian Har-
wood's,
and Diana Poulton's evidence of Renaissance lute
design
included instruments
played by angels.3
Yet,
Winternitz cautioned that an art work's
subject
and
pictorial
tradition would influence the artist's de-
piction
of
music,
sometimes to
fantasy,
and
complained
that some
angel
ensembles had been taken "at face
value" even when "the
depiction
was of an
allegorical
nature".4 Winternitz
asked,
"were the
painters
straining
their
imaginations
to
compete
with the
mystic
and
poetic interpreters
of the
Scriptures, filling
the
heavens with fantastic
shapes
and
objects
never seen on earth?"5
Some
years ago
I
began cataloguing images
of Italian Marian
paintings
dated between 1450 and 1530
with
angel
musicians
-
a
process
for which I thank Professor H. Colin Slim for his assistance in its
early
stages.6
1 collected both the narrative
subjects
and the iconic Marian
paintings
-
that
is,
paintings depicting
plotless symmetrical gatherings
of
holy figures
such as the Madonna Enthroned of Bellini's San Giobbe
altarpiece [fig. 1];
I studied them
according
to
subject,
artist, date,
geographic region,
musical
instrument,
and
performance practice.
The
angel
musician
catalogue provided
a means for
viewing
the
repertoire
of
angel
musicians as a
whole,
bringing
a method for their
varying approaches
to their
presentation:
artists used
the
music-making
in the iconic Marian
images differently
from that in the narrative scenes. In narrative
subjects,
the
music-making
enhances the
storia;
for
example,
the
Nativity typically
includes
angels singing
from a
paper,
scroll or book with text and sometimes musical notation to "Gloria in excelsis
Deo,"
as a
restatement of Luke 2:14. Palma Vecchio's
Nativity (Zogno, Bergamo,
S.
Lorenzo),
for
example,
has two an-
gels holding
music to the Gloria chant.7 The
Assumption
and Coronation of the
Virgin
often have a crowd
of
angels playing
all manners of
instruments,
for
example,
in Lorenzo Costa's Adoration
(Bologna,
Pinacoteca
Nazionale,
fig. 2)
with
harp,
recorders,
psaltery,
lute,
cymbals,
tambourine, fiddle,
and
trumpets.
The
angels
2004 Research Center for Music
Iconography
CUNY 53
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Katherine
Powers,
Music-Making Angels
in Italian Renaissance
Painting
:
Symbolism
and
Reality
2. Lorenzo
Costa,
Adoration. Oil on
panel.
Pinacoteca Nazionale di
Bologna.
illustrate the
grandiose music-making
believed to be
continuously taking part
in heaven.8
Though
artists
portray
the
music-making
with instruments the
worshiper recognizes,
the
spectacular
ensemble combina-
tions were not
part
of
everyday
musical
performance.
The
diversity
of instruments further
displays
the
psal-
miss exhortation to
praise
God with all means.9 In a variation of this
imagery,
some
depictions
of the As-
sumption
and the Coronation of the
Virgin symmetrically place
four instruments
representing
four distinct
instrument
categories.
For
example,
Baldassare Carrars Coronation of the
Virgin
of 1512
(Forl, Pinacoteca)
has
angel
musicians
encircling
the
Virgin
and
playing,
from
top
left, tambourine, recorder,
harp,
and
fiddle,
one instrument in each corner.10
Such traditions occurred
already
of course in trecento Marian
works,
as Howard
Mayer
Brown informed
us.11 But
by
the latter
quattrocento
-
a time when
study
of
perspective
and
emphasis
on naturalism
gradually
brought
human forms in
contemporaneous
dress to
religious painting
-
the iconic Madonna Enthroned altar-
piece,
in contrast with the narrative storie
,
depicts
the
music-making
as it was in actual
contemporaneous
54
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Music in Art
XXIX/
1-2
(2004)
3. Benedetto
Coda,
Madonna
of
the
Rosary (1513).
Oil on
panel.
Rimini,
Galleria Nazionale.
practice,
that
is,
with realistic instruments of the soft or bas
category12
-
such as
lute, recorder, fiddle, rebec,
and lira da braccio
-
in
contemporaneous
instrumental ensembles of
solos, duos,
and
trios,
often with
sing-
ing.
Standard motive in these iconic
paintings,
the
angel
musician mimicks
contemporary
musical
perfor-
mance,
even while
fulfilling
the
painting's symbolism,
and did so to
satisfy
the
painting's purpose.
The
contemporaneous worshiper
-
whether
cleric,
confraternity
member,
patron,
merchant,
or
peasant
-
would
recognize
not
only
the
angels'
soft instruments and their
performance,
even their ensemble
combinations,
having
witnessed instrumental
performance
in
confraternity
devotions,
courtly
chamber
music,
and in
piazza.
Moreover,
I believe the viewer would also
recognize
the
angels' repertoire
and function.
Limiting
discussion
to
lutes,13
1 would like to first examine the instruments and
performance technique
of
angel
lutenists in iconic
Madonna Enthroned
altarpieces
of the Veneto and its
reaches,
and then relate the
angel
musician to musical
practice
as the viewer
recognized
it within the devotional context.
My hope
is to
clarify
the
angel's presence
in terms of
pictorial meaning
and
purpose.
55
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Katherine
Powers,
Music-Making Angels
in Italian Renaissance
Painting
:
Symbolism
and
Reality
4.
Jacopo
Palma,
il
vecchio,
Zermano
Altarpiece (ca. 1512-15).
Oil on
panel,
230
x
150 cm. Zermano
(Treviso),
SanElena.
Reliable evidence of Renaissance lute
design, including
written
descriptions,
intarsia,
and
iconography
in secular
subjects, portrays
a lute of
varying
sizes14 in either an almond
shape
with slanted
shoulders,
or a
round
shape,15
with a vaulted ribbed
back,
flat soundboard with a
single
ornate rose tone
hole,
and a wide
neck
bearing
frets and
extending
to a bent
pegbox;
at the bottom of the lute's
face,
the
strings
are attached
by
a
bridge.
Mid-to-late
quattrocento
lutes often had
only
five courses of
strings
but
by
the
cinquecento,
lutes
had six courses with eleven
pegs.16
The lute in the intarsia from
Bologna,
now in the
Metropolitan
Museum
of Art in New
York,
for
example, depicts
a realistic lute with eleven
pegs,
nine
strings plus
two broken
ones,
tied
frets,
a flat
bridge,
a central
rose,
and
sloping
shoulders.17
Worshipers viewing
Madonna Enthroned
altarpieces
would see
angel
lutenists
holding
faithful
representations
of true musical instruments. For
example,
Benedetto
Coda,
had his
angel
in the Madonna Enthroned
"Rosary altarpiece" (Rimini, Pinacoteca)
of 1513 hold a
larger
lute with slanted
shoulders,
wide
neck,
and six courses
[fig. 3]
. Giovanni Bellini
portray-
ed music with
exquisite
technical
accuracy;
his
realistic-looking
lutes in his San Giobbe
altarpiece [fig. 1]
show a remarkable resemblance in outline and rose ornamentation to one made
by
Martin Kaiser in Venice18
and to a latter
cinquecento surviving example by George
Gerle of Innsbruck.19
56
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Music in Art
XXIX/
1-2
(2004)
5. Giovanni Battista Cima da
Conegliano. Conegliano
Altarpiece (1492-93).
Oil,
345
x
202 cm.
Conegliano,
Cathedral.
Contemporary
viewers would
recognize
the
angels' performance
on the lute: the
right
hand,
perhaps
holding
a
plectrum,
is
depicted
over the
strings
either at or below the
rose,
while the left hand is
spread
over
the frets of the neck. In the fifteenth
century,
a real
performer
would
support
the lute with the left
hand,
the
right
hand wrist around the instrument's bottom.20
Johannes
Tinctoris in his De inventione et usu musicae of
about 1483
explains
that "the
player
holds the instrument with his left hand" even while
pressing
the
strings
on the neck to create the notes.21 Lorenzo Costa's Concert of circa 1490
(London,
National
Gallery),
which
is said to mimic Ferrarese court
performance,
also has the lutenist
supporting
the instrument with the
right
arm.22
Angel
lutenists mirror this
posture;
for
example,
the seated
angel
lutenist in Cima da
Conegliano'
s
Dragan altarpiece
of about 1500
(Venice, Accademia)
holds the instrument above the
lap against
the
chest,
wrapping
the
right
arm around the lute's end.23 In the
early
sixteenth
century,
real lutenists
gradually began
to rest the instrument in the
lap.
The
Capirola
Lutebook,
copied
in Venice about
1517,
corrects the earlier
pos-
ture,
instructing
that the lute be held such that no
weight
is born
by
the left hand.24
Again, angel
lutenists in
iconic Madonna Enthroned
paintings
follow
contemporary
method,
for
example,
Palma Vecchio's Zermano
altarpiece (Zermano,
Treviso,
S.
Elena) (ca. 1512/15)
whose
angel
rests a
large
instrument with six courses
in the
lap [fig. 4].
57
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Katherine
Powers,
Music-Making Angels
in Italian Renaissance
Painting
:
Symbolism
and
Reality
6. Fra
Bartolommeo,
Mystic Marriage (1512/ 13).
Florence,
Palazzo Pitti.
The
change
in lute
position
followed a
change
in
playing techniques
in the latter
quattrocento,
from mo-
nophonie performance
-
with the
right
hand
plucking note-by-note
with a
plectrum
-
to
polyphonic per-
formance
-
striking
the
strings
with the
fingers.25
Tinctoris describes the latter: "Others do what is much more
difficult
[than
to
play
a
single line], namely
to
play
a
composition
alone,
and most
skillfully,
in not
only
two
parts,
but even in three or four/'26 Both
performance practices
existed
simultaneously
for some
years,
and
the horizontal
right
arm
position
of the
plectrum-performance
also remained until the
early cinquecento.27
Costa's Concert shows
polyphonic playing
with the
right
arm
position
of
plectrum-performance. Angel
lutenists mirror this
changing performance practice:
in
paintings prior
to about
1470,
angels always
hold a
plectrum,
but afterward
they rarely
do. For
example,
the
right angel
lutenist in Andrea
Mantegna's
San Zeno
altarpiece
of about 1460
(Verona,
S.
Zeno) plays
with
plectrum (while
the left
angel
tunes the
instrument).
Benedetto Coda's 1513 Madonna Enthroned
("Rosary altarpiece"),
however,
has the
angel
lutenist
playing
without a
plectrum,
the
right
hand
fingers spread
over the six courses at the rose
[fig. 3]
. In
fact,
solo lutenists
are not common to
angel
musical
practice
until the 1470s after which
they
become
frequently depicted.
To be
sure,
even within this realism
allegorical meanings
do continue: an astute
worshiper seeing
an
angel tuning
the lute
might
reflect
upon
the harmonic
perfection
of
angelic song,
if not on the difficulties of
58
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Music in Art
XXIX/
1-2
(2004)
keeping
the lute in tune.
And,
some
angel
lutenists' hand
positions
seem inaccurate or
nave,
such as Cima' s
generalized
hand
position
of the
angel
lutenist in the
Conegliano altarpiece [fig. 5]. Yet,
a
worshiper
medita-
ting
on the
image
retains an
impression
of a
real,
recognizable,
and authentic
performance.
The artiss desire
to
represent
a believable
performance,
even
sympathetic
and sincere in
expression,
led to
mirroring perfor-
mance
postures
such as Vittorio
Carpaccio'
s lutenist
(Koper, Cathedral)
who looks at the left
hand,
and Bel-
lini's San Giobbe lutenist
[fig. 1]
who looks at the
right
hand,
as
might any
instrumentalist
needing
extra care
to find a
proper finger position. Giorgio
Vasars
appreciation
of Fra Bartolommeo's
altarpiece (Florence,
Pa-
lazzo
Pitti;
fig. 6) implies
that a natural realism is desired: the two
angels
are described
playing
a lute and a lira da
braccio,
the left with the
leg
bent
back,
resting
the lute
upon
it,
while the
fingers
are on the
strings
to
play
them as he listens to the
music;
his head is raised and mouth
slightly
open,
so that a viewer would find it hard to believe he does not hear the voice. The other
angel
leans
toward the lira to hear whether it is in
tune,
his
eyes
on the
ground, concentrating
on
following
his
companion.28
Though
I have limited
myself
to lutes in the Madonna Enthroned
altarpieces,
much the same could be
said for the other instruments held
by
the
angels
in Marian iconic
paintings
-
lira da
braccio,29 recorder,
fiddle, rebec,
harp,
and
portative organ among
them.
Indeed,
angels'
instruments have served
already
as a
source of information on instrument
design
and
playing position.30
More
significantly,
however,
is the
realism in the
angels'
instrumental ensemble combinations in the iconic Madonna Enthroned
paintings.
The
angels'
authentic
performance
ensembles establishes their
purpose
within the function of the iconic devo-
tional
painting.
Angels
musicians in iconic Marian
paintings
are
depicted
in
solos, duos, trios,
and
larger
ensembles of
soft
instruments;
occurring
most often are solo lutes
(with
or without
singer),
lute and bowed
string
duo
(whether
lira da
braccio, rebec,
or
fiddle),
and lute
duo,
in that order. Hence the
lute,
the most
ubiquitious
instrument of the
time,
was also the most often
depicted
instrument in
angels'
hands. In the
Renaissance,
the
lute was likened to the ancient
lyre
and held in
high
esteem. The humanist Paolo
Cortese,
in his admiration
for
music,
praises
above all
singing
to the lute.31
Thought
to be an instrument of
Orpheus,32
the lute was
played by poet-improvisers
who
accompanied
recitations at all levels of
society,
from itinerant street
singers
entertaining
crowds in
piazza,
to court
performers, respected
for
proficiency
on the
lute,
such as Pietrobono
del Chitarino
(1417-97)
and Serafino
Aquilano (1466-1500),
to the amateur noblemen. Lutes
performed
alone
as solo
instruments,
as
accompaniment
to the
voice,
in duet with another lute or a bowed
stringed
instrument,
and in trios and
larger
ensembles of soft instruments.
Music
performed
on the lute in the Renaissance included
improvised
and memorized works from the
unwritten
tradition,33 chansons, frottole,34
instrumental
pieces,35
and also laude.36 The lauda
developed
in
medieval Florence
by
confraternities of laudesi and
disciplinati,
but
by
the late fifteenth
century
it had
become
widely sung
in northern and central
Italy.37
A lauda is a
sung praise
or
prayer
-
hence its name
-
and
its texts include exaltations to the
Virgin Mary
and
penitential prayers
to Christ. The
repertoire
exhibits a va-
riety
of musical
styles
from short
monophonie
tunes to
strophic
chordal harmonizations to
simple poly-
phony. Though
a number of laude were notated and transmitted in
manuscript
and
printed
books,
many
were
sung
from
memory
or
improvised
from
formulae,
and others transmitted
only
with the
lyrics
and the
phrase
"cantasi come"
("to
be
sung like"),
followed
by
the name of a familiar
song.38
The lauda
genre
includes
pieces
suitable for intimate solo or chamber
settings
as well as for
large-scale group consumption;
it
played
a vital
part
in
private
devotions and
paraliturgical
services in the
courts,
in the
processions
and rituals of the
lay
confraternities and
religious
orders,
and in sacred theatrical works.39 A music familiar to both
laymen
and
clergy,
the lauda was
regularly performed by
voices and
stringed
instruments,
including
the
lute,
in a
variety
of soft ensembles. Venice's confraternities
-
the scuole
grandi
and the scuole
piccole
-
were notable music
patrons, regularly hiring string
musicians
-
in
particular
lute,
lira da
braccio,
and
harp
-
to
play
laude for their
processions
and
confraternity
ceremonies.40 Two books of laude
published
in Venice
by
Petrucci about 1508
contain
many
works in the
style
of a solo
song
with instrumental
accompaniment appropriate
for lute and
bowed
string
instrument duo or for solo lute.41 The instruments would
accompanying
a
singer
or
singers by
performing
the lower voices.
59
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Katherine
Powers,
Music-Making Angels
in Italian Renaissance
Painting
:
Symbolism
and
Reality
Despite
its
importance
in Italian Renaissance
music,
the lute did not
perform
in
liturgical
services.
According
to sources of Mass
performance
-
including
church
pay
records,
eyewitness
accounts,
theological
declarations,
and
iconography
-
Masses with
polyphonic
music were
performed by
voices,
accompanied by
the
organ42
and,
on
special
occasions,
by
wind
instruments,
for
example,
shawms and sackbuts. Documents
for the 1475
wedding
Mass in Pesaro of Costanzo Sforza and Camilla of
Aragon,
for
example,
as well as the
1493
wedding
Mass of Maximilian I and Bianca Maria Sforza in
Milan,
describe
sumptuous performances
with numerous wind instruments such as
piffari,
and trombe or
trombetti,
as well as
singers.43 Jonathan
Glixon
has shown that the Venetian confraternities hired instrumentalists of
strings
and wind instruments for
ceremonies,
in
particular processions
on
major
feast
days,44 yet only
wind instruments can be documented
serving
at Mass.
Though
our
understanding
of Mass
performance
in
Italy
be
incomplete,45
we do not have
evidence that
suggests
lutes were
regularly played during liturgical
services at this time.
Hence the lauda is the
only
sacred
genre
a
worshiper
in Renaissance
Italy
would
recognize
in
perfor-
mance with a
lute,
and thus the
genre
a
worshiper
would
equate
with
angel
lutenist
performance.
I
propose
then that
angel
musicians in the iconic Madonna Enthroned
represent
lauda
performance.
As
performers
of
laude,
the
angels
would be
fulfilling
their
recognized
duties,
to
praise
God and to lead humans into
praise.46
Pseudo
Dionysius (Areopagita) provided
a Medieval foundation for
thought
on
angels,
followed
by Jacobus
de
Voragine, among
others,
describing
their nine
orders,
their
singing praises
of "Sanctus"47 without
ceasing,
and the "Gloria in excelsis Deo". The lauda
repertoire
contains
songs
of
praise
with imitations of these texts.
Moreover,
children dressed as
angels sang
laude to the
Virgin Mary
in
contemporaneous processions,
including
one
performance
with an iconic Madonna Enthroned
painting
when
Mantegna's
Madonna della
Vittoria
(Paris, Louvre)
was
processed
around Mantua in 1496 in honor of a
Gonzaga military "victory"
over
Charles VIII at Forno vo the
prior year.
A
contemporary
described the event as such:
All the
religious
orders,
together
with the
greater part
of the
populace, gathered
at San Sebastiano
church where the
image
of the
glorious Virgin
that messer Andrea
Mantegna
had
finished,
decorated
most
solemnly,
was raised onto a
large platform,
and above it was a
youth
dressed as God the Father
and two
prophets
on each side
[of him];
on one side
[of
the
platform]
were three little
[boys
dressed
as] angels
who
sang
certain
laude,
. . . .48
Lauda-play ing angels
aid the
purpose
of the iconic Madonna Enthroned
painting.
To be
sure,
there are
many readings
of the iconic
altarpiece
within the art
history
literature,
both
specific
works and the
category
as a whole. An
early-nineteenth-century attempt
to characterize the Madonna Enthroned
subject brought
the
term sacra
conversazione,
as if the
Virgin Mary
and saints are
having
a
holy,
even
silent,
conversation.49 Some
would
emphasize
the Madonna Enthroned
altarpiece'
s role as an altar
decoration,
thus
"presuming
that
altarpiece imagery
would be
closely
associated with Mass service".50 In
describing
Cima da
Conegliano's
altarpiece
for the
Conegliano
cathedral
[fig. 5],
Peter
Humfrey suggested altarpieces might represent
Mass
performance,
in
particular,
the celestial Mass of the Church
Triumphant,
a
parallel
to Mass service in the
earthly
church,
the Church Militant.51
However,
an
interpretation
that sees the Madonna Enthroned
altarpiece
as
depicting only
celestial Mass would limit the
painting's subject
to Mass
service,
and not account
for the viewer's
understanding
of the
angel's
lute
performance.52
Thus I would
argue against
an
interpreta-
tion
limiting
the Madonna Enthroned to
depicting
celestial Mass.
Rather,
I would note that
angel
musicians'
lauda
performance
confirms another more recent view
promoted by
Charles
Hope,
Paul
Hills,
and others.
Their view holds the iconic Madonna
Enthroned,
though
an
altarpiece,
as
simply
an
image
to assist all de-
votions. Both Hills and
Hope support
their
interpretation
with
contemporary writings including
art
theory,
theological
statements, sermons,
and
artist-patron
contracts,
which do not
distinguish
the
altarpiece
from
other devotional
images.53 Gregory
the
Great,
Thomas
Aquinas
and
others,
established the
purpose
of sacred
images
as
teaching
the
faith,
in
particular
to the illiterate as "books for the
unlettered",
reinforcing
the me-
mory (in
that
images
are said to be more
enduring
than
words),
and
exciting
the
spiritual
emotions.54 This
spiritual
excitement is reiterated
by
Bonaventure and others who
emphasize
the affective
possibilities
of
images.
David
Freedberg
described the
widespread
use of
images
for
private
and
public
meditation and
prayer
in the Renaissance.55 Sixten
Ringbom
codified the term
"empathetic
meditation" to describe the
worshiper's
emotional reaction
during image-assisted
meditation.56 Dozens of Renaissance devotional ma-
nuals
promote
affective,
image-assisted
devotions and such meditation was
widespread, part
of
confraternity
60
This content downloaded from 163.178.101.228 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 23:49:58 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Music in Art
XXIX/
1-2
(2004)
ritual,
and
private
devotions.
Music-making angels singing
laude fulfill another of their duties
according
to
late medieval sources
including
Saint Antoninus:
they
aid the
piety
and devotion of
mortals,
and this
they
do
by serving
as role models and
cueing
the viewer
directly by gesture.57
Their
charming music-making
en-
hances the Madonna Enthroned
painting's
effect as a devotional
image, intensifying
a
worshiper's spiritual
emotions while in
empathetic
meditation.
Notes
1
Emanuel
Winternitz,
"On
Angel
Concerts in the 15th Cen-
tury:
A Critical
Approach
to Realism and
Symbolism
in Sacred
Painting,,/
Musical Instruments and Their
Symbolism
in Western Art
(New
Haven: Yale
University
Press, 1979),
137.
2
Emanuel
Winternitz,
"Early
Violins in
Paintings by
Gaudenzio Ferrari and his
School",
Musical Instruments and Their
Symbolism
in Western Art , 94-109,
first
published
in The Common-
wealth
of
Music:
Writings
on Music in
History
, Art , and Culture , in
Honor
of
Curt Sachs
(New
York: The Free
Press, 1965)
and later ex-
panded
for
Winternitz,
Gaudenzio Ferrari , His School and the
Early
History of
the Violin
(Varallo:
Societa
per
la Conservazione delle
Opere
d'Arte in
Valsesia, 1967).
3
Mary
Remnant,
Musical Instruments
of
the West
(New
York:
St. Martin's
Press, 1978), 30;
Ian
Harwood,
Diana
Poulton,
and
David van
Edwards,
s.v.
"Lute",
The New Grove
Dictionary of
Music and Musicians
,
2nd ed.
(London: Macmillan, 2001),
vol. 15.
Paul Beier used the
example
of
angel
musicians in
discovering
early
lute
technique
in
"Right
Hand Position in Renaissance Lute
Technique", Journal of
the Lute
Society of
America XII
(1979),
5-12.
The
angel
lutenists in Giovanni Bellini's San Giobbe
altarpiece
serve as an
example
of
developing
lute
plectrum practice
for
Stefano Toffolo in his Antichi strumenti veneziani
(Venezia:
Arsena-
le
Editrice, 1987), 34-35,
and
Douglas
Alton Smith draws
upon
angel
musicians in his
history
of the lute in A
History of
the Lute
from Antiquity
to the Renaissance
([Lexington, VA]:
Lute
Society
of
America, 2002).
4
Emanuel
Winternitz,
"The Visual Arts and the Historian
of
Music",
Musical Instruments and Their
Symbolism
in Western Art ,
32.
5
E.
Winternitz,
"On
Angel
Concerts",
138.
6
The
catalogue
was created
by examining
the
photographs
at the Photo
Study
Collection at the
Getty
Research Institute in
Los
Angeles
and those at the Fototeca of the Kunsthistorisches In-
stitut in
Florence,
as well as
reproductions
in art exhibition
catalogues
and modern
publications.
I chose to
begin
with
1450,
wherein the Renaissance
style
was
fully
embraced,
and end with
1530,
at which time mannerist
style developed.
7
Illustration in
Philip Rylands,
Palma il Vecchio:
L'opera
com-
pleta (Milano: Mondadori, 1988),
54.
8
See for
example
Howard
Mayer
Brown,
"Trecento
Angels
and the Instruments
They Play",
Modern Musical
Scholarship.
Ed.
by
Edward Olleson
(London:
Oriel
Press, 1980), 112;
and Richard
Rastall,
"The Musical
Repertory",
The
Iconography of
Heaven. Ed.
by
Clifford Davidson
(Kalamazoo:
Medieval
Institute, 1994),
167-
168.
9
See Edward E.
Lowinsky, "Ockeghem's
Canon for
Thirty-
Six Voices: An
Essay
in Musical
Iconography", Essays
in Musicol-
ogy
in Honor
of Dragan
Plamenac on His 70th
Birthday.
Ed.
by
Gus-
tave Reese and Robert
J.
Snow
(Pittsburgh: University
of Pitts-
burgh
Press, 1969),
158.
10
Illustration in Bernard
Berenson,
Italian Pictures
of
the Re-
naissance: Venetian School
(New
York: Phaidon
Publishers, 1957),
pl.
397.
11
H.M.
Brown,
"Trecento
Angels", esp. pp.
119-123.
12
As
opposed
to the
haut,
or
loud,
instruments such as
shawm and trombone. Edmund A.
Bowles,
"
Haut and bas: The
Grouping
of Musical Instruments in the Middle
Ages",
Musica
Disciplina
VIII
(1954),
115.
13
For a discussion of the realism of the lira da braccio
play-
ed
by angels
see Katherine
Powers,
"The lira da braccio in the
Angel's
Hands in Italian Madonna Enthroned
Paintings",
Music
in Art
XXVI/
1-2
(spring-fall 2001),
20-30.
14
Descriptions
of the lute include Michael
Praetorius,
De
organographia,
second
part
of
Syntagmatis
musici
(Wolfenbuttel,
1618).
Howard
Mayer
Brown, Sixteenth-Century
Instrumentation:
The Music
for
the Florentine Intermedii
(Rome:
American Institute
of
Musicology, 1973), 29;
Ian
Harwood,
A
Brief History of
the Lute
(London:
The Lute
Society, 1975),
5. Mantuan documents around
1500
regarding
lutes for Isabella d'Este
testify
to a
variety
of lute
sizes,
describing large ("Hutto grande")
and small instruments
("Hutto piccolo");
a document from 1523 also describes a "liutto
mezzano". William F.
Prizer,
"Lutenists at the Court of Mantua
in the Late Fifteenth and
Early
Sixteenth
Centuries", Journal of
the
Lute
Society of
America XIII
(1980),
18-19.
15
D.A. Smith,
A
History of
the
Lute,
65.
16
Sebastian
Virdung
in Musica
getutscht (Basel, 1511), pro-
moted the new
eleven-string,
six-course lute over the
nine-string,
five-course
lute,
saying
"some lutenists
play
on nine
strings
which
have
only
five
courses,
some
play
on eleven
strings
which have
six courses. One does not learn as
much,
it seems to
me,
with nine
strings"
.
Quoted
and translated in Peter
Danner,
"Before Petrucci:
The Lute in the Fifteenth
Century", Journal of
the Lute
Society of
America V
(1972),
11.
17
Illustration in
Winternitz, "Importance
of
Quattrocento
Intarsias", pl.
47b.
Toffolo shows a
surviving
Martin Kaiser lute held in the
Conservatoire
Royal
de
Musique
in Brussels. Stefano
Toffolo,
An-
tichi strumenti veneziani
(Venezia:
Arsenale
Editrice, 1987),
35.
19
D.A.
Smith,
A
History of
the Lute , 61-62, provides photo-
graph
of the Gerle
lute,
now held in the Kunsthistorisches Muse-
um,
Vienna.
20
Robert
Spencer,
"How to Hold a Lute: Historical Evidence
from
Paintings", Early
Music
III/
4
(October 1975),
352-354.
21
Anthony
Baines,
"Fifteenth-Century
Instruments in Tinc-
toris's De Inventione et Usu Musicae"
, Galpin Society Journal
III
(1950),
21.
22
I.
Harwood,
D.
Poulton,
and D. van
Edwards,
s.v.
"Lute",
The New Grove
Dictionary of
Music and Musicians. Lewis Lock-
wood,
Music in Renaissance Ferrara
(Cambridge:
Harvard Univer-
sity
Press, 1984),
106.
61
This content downloaded from 163.178.101.228 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 23:49:58 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Katherine
Powers,
Music-Making Angels
in Italian Renaissance
Painting
:
Symbolism
and
Reality
23
Illustration in Peter
Humfrey,
Cirna da
Conegliano (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), pl.
99.
24
Chicago, Newberry Library,
Case MS VM
C.25, "Compo-
sitione di meser Vincenzo
Capirola,r.,
Otto
Gombosi, ed., Compo-
sitione di meser Vincenzo
Capirola:
Lute-book
(circa 1517) (Neuilly-
sur-Seine: Socit de
musique d'autrefois, 1955);
I.
Harwood,
D.
Poulton,
and D. van
Edwards,
s.v.
//Lute,/,
The New Grove Dictio-
nary of
Music and Musicians.
25
P.
Danner,
"Before
Petrucci,r, 5-7;
William F.
Prizer,
"The
Frottola and the Unwritten
Tradition",
Studi musicali
XV/
1
(1986),
12;
Kurt
Dorfmueller,
Studien zur Lauten musik in der ersten
Hlfte
des 16.
Jahrhunderts (Tutzing:
Schneider, 1967),
104.
26
P.
Danner,
"Before
Petrucci", 7;
see also
Baines,
"Tincto-
ris", 24,
and W.F.
Prizer,
"The
Frottola",
12.
27
Christopher Page,
"The
15th-Century
Lute: New and Ne-
glected
Sources", Early
Music
IX/
1
(January 1981),
12-13.
28
"Evvi un San Bartolomeo ritto . . . insieme con due fan-
ciulli che suonano uno il liuto e Y altro la
lira;
all'un de
quali
ha
fatto raccorre una
gamba
e
posarvi
su lo
strumento,
le man
poste
alle corde in atto di
diminuire,
l'orecchio intento all'armonia e la
testa volta in
alto,
con la bocca
alquanto aperta,
d'una maniera
che chi lo
guarda
non
pu
discredersi di non avere a sentire ancor
la voce. Il simile fa
l'altro,
che acconcio
per lato,
con uno orecchio
appoggiato
alla
lira, par
che senta l'accordamento che fa il suono
con il liuto e con la voce mentre che facendo tenore
egli
con
gli
occhi a terra va
seguitando,
con tener fermo e volto l'orecchio al
compagno,
che suona e canta."
Giorgio
Vasari,
Le vite dei
pi
eccellenti
pittori
, scultori e
architetti,
ed.
by
Licia
Ragghianti
and
Carlo
Ragghianti (Milano:
Rizzoli
Editore, 1973), III,
688. Trans-
lation ed. from
Giorgio
Vasari,
The Lives
of
the Painters ,
Sculptors
and Architects
,
ed. and trans,
by
William Gaunt
(New
York:
Dutton, 1927),
2:195.
29
See K.
Powers,
"The Lira da braccio in the
Angel's
Hands".
30
To this
end,
the work of
Beier, Remnant, Harwood,
Poul-
ton, Smith, Toffolo,
and Winternitz is cited in footnotes 2 and 3.
31
Nino
Pirrotta,
"Music and Cultural Tendencies in Fif-
teenth-Century Italy",
Music and Culture in
Italy from
the Middle
Ages
to the
Baroque (Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press, 1984),
90-93; idem,
Music and Theatre
from
Poliziano to Monteverdi
(Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982),
23.
32
N.
Pirrotta,
Music and Theatre , 29. The lira da braccio was
also often
depicted
in
Orpheus's
hands.
33
W.F.
Prizer,
"The
Frottola",
8-12 who also describes the
style
and
probable performance
of several written
examples
of the
unwritten tradition.
34
H. Colin
Slim,
"Valid and Invalid
Options
for
Performing
Frottole",
La
musique
, de tous les
passetemps
le
plus
beau:
Hommage
a
Jean-Michel
Vaccaro. Ed.
by
Francois Lesure and Henri Vanhult
(Paris: Klincksieck, 1998),
319. The editions
by
Ottaviano Petrucci
for lute and voice and for solo lute include the two books of ar-
rangements by
Francesco Bossinensis
published by
Petrucci in
1509 and 1511. Benvenuto
Disertori,
Le
frottole per
canto e liuto
intabulate da Franciscus Bossinensis
(Milano: Ricordi, 1964).
Printed
music for two
lutes,
for instance those
by
Francesco
Spinacino,
Joanambrosio Dalza,
and Pietro Paolo
Borrono,
included arran-
gements
and intabulations of all
genres
of music.
35
W.F.
Prizer,
"The
Frottola", 16-19,
citing manuscripts
Paris, Bibliothque
Nationale de
France,
Res. Vmd. 27 and Venice
Biblioteca Marciana
It.XI,66
as well as editions
by
Petrucci and
Antico. See also Tablature de luth italienne. Facsimile du ms. de la
Bibliothque
nationale , Paris Res. Vmd. ms 27 ca. 1505
(Genve:
Minkoff, 1981).
36
The
repertoire
of the instrumentalist is reconsidered in
Howard
Mayer
Brown,
"The Instrumentalist's
Repertory
in the
Sixteenth
Century",
Le Concert des voix et des instruments a la
Renaissance , ed.
by Jean-Michel
Vaccaro
(Paris: CNRS, 1995),
23.
37
Frank A. D'
Accone,
"Alcune note sulle
compagnie
fioren-
tine dei laudesi durante il
Quattrocento",
Rivista italiana di musico-
logia
X
(1975), 86-114;
Giulio
Cattin,
"Church
Patronage
of Music
in
Fifteenth-Century Italy"; Jonathan Glixon,
"Music at the
Venetian Scuole
Grandi, 1440-1540",
Music in Medieval and
Early-
Modern
Europe.
Ed.
by
Iain Fenlon
(Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni-
versity
Press, 1981),
21-36 and
193-208;
and William F.
Prizer,
"Laude di
popolo
, laude di corte: Some
Thoughts
on the
Style
and
Function of the Renaissance
Lauda",
La musica a Firenze al
tempo
di Lorenzo il
Magnifico.
Ed.
by
Piero
Gargiulo (Firenze:
Leo S. Ol-
schki, 1993),
167-194.
38
On the
style
of the lauda in the decades around
1500,
see
Jonathan Glixon,
"The
Polyphonic
Laude of Innocentius Dammo-
nis
Journal ofMusicologyVlll/1 (1990), 19-53;
W.F.
Prizer,
"Laude
di
popolo ";
and
Sylvia Kenney,
"In Praise of the
Lauda", Aspects of
Medieval and Renaissance Music: A
Birthday Offering
to Gustave
Reese. Ed.
by Jan
LaRue
(New
York: W.W.
Norton, 1966),
489-499.
39
Jonathan
Glixon
thoroughly
documents the
performance
of the lauda at the Venetian scuole in
Glixon,
"Music at the Vene-
tian Scuole
Grandi, 1440-1540"; idem,
"
Far una bella
procession:
Music and Public
Ceremony
at the Venetian scuole
grandi" ,
Altro
Polo :
Essays
on Italian Music
of
the
Cinquecento.
Ed.
by
Richard
Charteris
(Sydney: University
of
Sydney
Press, 1989), 190-220;
and
idem,
"
Con canti et
organo:
Music at the Venetian scuole
piccole
during
the
Renaissance",
Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts:
Studies in Honor
of
Lewis Lockwood. Ed.
by Jessie
Ann Owens and
Anthony
M.
Cummings (Warren,
MI: Harmonie Park
Press, 1997),
123-140.
40
Jonathan Glixon,
"Lutenists in Renaissance Venice: Some
Notes from the
Archives", Journal of
the Lute
Society of
America XVI
(1983),
15.
41
Ibid., 24.
42
A
cappella performance
for
liturgy
around
1500,
with or
without
organ,
was
put
forth
by
Frank A. D'
Accone,
"The Musical
Chapels
at the Florentine Cathedral and
Baptistry during
the First
Half of the 16th
Century", Journal of
the American
Musicological
Society XXIV/1 (1971), 1-50;
and
idem,
"The Performance of
Sacred Music in
Italy during Josquin's Time,
c.
1475-1525",
Josquin
des Prez:
Proceedings of
the International
Josquin
Festival-
Conference.
Ed.
by
Edward E.
Lowinsky
with Bonnie
J.
Blackburn
(London:
Oxford
University
Press, 1976),
601-618. Lewis Lock-
wood,
Music in Renaissance Ferrara, 1400-1505: The Creation
of
a
Musical Center in the
Fifteenth Century (Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1984), 136,
notes that the
organ
was used in court
chapel during
Ercole I's time.
Stephen Bont,
studying
music
prints,
describes
the use of soft instruments in Masses from
mid-century. Stephen
Bont,
"The Use of Instruments in Sacred Music in
Italy
1560-
1700", Early
Music
XVIII/4 (October 1990),
519-531.
43
William F.
Prizer,
"Bernardino Piffaro e i
piff
ari e trom-
boni di Mantova: Strumenti a fiato in una corte
italiana",
Rivista
italiana di
musicologia
XVI
(1981), 174-176;
David
Fallows,
"The
Performing
Ensembles in
Josquin's
Sacred
Music", Tijdschrift
van
de
Vereniging
voor Nederlandse
Muziekgeschiedenis XXXV/1-2
(1985), 33;
see also W.F.
Prizer,
"Music at the Court of the Sforza:
The Birth and Death of a Musical
Center",
Musica
Disciplina
XLIII
(1989),
141-193.
James
McKinnon surmises that other instruments
were first used on a
regular
basis in the Mass in
Spain
from about
1525 and that the
practice gradually spread
northward.
J.
McKin-
62
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Music in Art
XXIX/
1-2
(2004)
non,
"
Representations
of the Mass in Medieval and Renaissance
Art", Journal of
the American
Musicological Society XXXI/1 (1978),
49-51.
44
In the latter Middle
Ages through
the fifteenth
century,
the scuole
piccole employed performers
of wind
instruments;
in the
early
sixteenth
century
the Scuola di Santa Maria dei Mercanti
and the Scuola di Sant'Orsola also
employed
winds.
J. Glixon,
"
Con canti et
organo",
123-130.
45
One
example
of Mass
performance
with
string
instru-
ments is described in a letter to Ercole d'Est from Ercole Gon-
zaga
of 29
April
1532 in which
Gonzaga
recounts
hearing
a seven-
part
Mass
by
Maistre
Jhan
with
viols,
but it seems to be a
unique
situation. Ian
Woodfield, Early History of
the Viol
(Cambridge:
Cambridge University
Press, 1984),
188.
46
Michael
Baxandall,
Patterns
of
Intention: On the Historical
Explanation of
Pictures
(New
Haven: Yale
University
Press, 1985),
127.
47
Isaiah 6:3. On the
angels singing
"Sanctus, sanctus,
sanc-
tus/7
see also E.E.
Lowinsky, "Ockeghem's
Canon for
Thirty-Six
Voices,
157-159. On
angels
and their
music,
in
particular
in
English
sources,
see Richard
Rastall,
"The Musical
Repertory",
163-171.
48
"Tuti li
religiosi
si adunoreno a San Sebastiano cum la
mazore
parte
del
populo,
dove era exaitata la
imagine
de la
glo-
riosa Verzene che ha fornita messer Andrea Mantinea suso uno
tribunale
grande
adornato molto
solemnemente,
et
sopra
ad essa
imagine gli
era uno zovene vestito da Dio Patre et dui
propheti
da
ogni
canto,
da li ladi tri anzoletti che cantavano certe laude et
per
contra
gli
erano XII
apostoli."
Letter from
Sigismondo Gonzaga
to Francesco
Gonzaga,
Mantua,
Archivio di
Stato,
Archivio
Gonzaga,
busta 2111.
Original
and translation from W.F.
Prizer,
"
Laude di
popolo ",
190. Also
published
in A.
Luzio,
"La "Madonna
della Vittoria7 del
Mantegna," Emporium
10
(1899),
367-368 and
Creighton
Gilbert,
Italian Art 1400-1500: Sources and Documents
(Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980),
135-136.
49
The term sacra conversazione is
applied
in
English
to altar-
pieces
such as Cima da
Conegliano's Dragan altarpiece, though
the
figures
are not
clearly communicating
with each other. Rona
Goffen,
uNostra conversatio in caelis est: Observations on the sacra
conversazione in the
Trecento",
Art Bulletin LXI
(1979), 198; Philip
Fehl, "Saints,
Donors and Columns in Titian's Pesaro
Madonna",
Renaissance
Papers
1974:
Papers
Read at the Southeastern Renaissance
Conference (Durham: University
of North Carolina
Press, 1975),
75-85;
and Peter
Humfrey,
The
Altarpiece
in Renaissance Venice
(New
Haven: Yale
University
Press, 1993),
12-13.
50
Martin
Kemp,
"Introduction: The
Altarpiece
in the Re-
naissance: a Taxonomie
Approach",
The
Altarpiece
in the Renais-
sance. Ed.
by
Peter
Humfrey
and Martin
Kemp (Cambridge:
Cam-
bridge University
Press, 1990),
11. See also Michael
Baxandall,
Patterns
of
Intention: On the Historical
Explanation of
Pictures
(New
Haven: Yale
University
Press, 1985), 106;
and Stalle
Sinding-Lar-
sen, Iconography
and Ritual: A
Study of Analytical Perspectives (Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget, 1984).
David Rosand characterizes the altar-
piece
as distinct from "other kinds of devotional
imagery" by
its
"liturgical
situation. Set above the altar
table,
the
painting
is
transformed
by
the
ceremony
over which it
visually presides:
the
celebration of the Mass." David
Rosand,
"'Divinit di cosa di-
pinta7:
Pictorial Structure and the
Legibility
of the
Altarpiece",
The
Altarpiece
in the Renaissance. Ed.
by
Peter
Humfrey
and Martin
Kemp (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990),
146. P.
Humfrey
also
emphasizes
the
altarpiece7
s service as a "visual
complement
to the
altar,"
giving
"the altar a visual
emphasis
analogous
to a
liturgical practice
that was the
developing
at this
time,
the elevation of the host." P.
Humfrey, Altarpiece
in
Venice,
57. Thus the
"altarpiece
served to concentrate attention on the
altar and the sacramental
activity
associated with it. P.
Humfrey,
The
Altarpiece
in
Venice,
70.
51
P.
Humfrey,
Cima da
Conegliano,
20.
52
If the
painter
were
trying
to show Mass
performance,
a
depiction
of choirs of
singers, perhaps reading
from a music book
and
accompanied by organ
and wind
instruments,
would be a
musical situation better
recognizable
to the viewer as Mass.
53
P.
Hills, "Altarpiece:
A Valid
Category",
47.
54
M.
Kemp, "Altarpiece", 7;
and David
Freedberg,
The Po-
wer
of Images:
Studies in the
History
and
Theory of Response (Chicago:
University
of
Chicago
Press, 1989),
162.
55
D.
Freedberg,
The Power
of Images,
in
particular
the
chapter,
"Invisibilia
per
visibilia: Meditation and the Uses of
Theory".
56
Sixten
Ringbom,
Icon to Narrative: The Rise
of
the Dramatic
Close-up
in
Fifteenth- century
Devotional
Painting (rev. ed.;
Doorn-
spijk: Davaco, 1984),
12.
57
M.
Baxandall,
Patterns
of Intention,
129.
63
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions