Libri, immagini, oggetti: i media della musica profana dal Medioevo alla Prima età moderna
The conference
Books, Images, Objects: The Media of Secular Music in the Medieval and
Early Modern Period intends to discuss medial and material aspects of
secular music sources between the twelfth and the sixteenth century. We
aim to consider music manuscripts and printed books as complex and
multifaceted objects, not only containing, but also shaping,
communicating and representing the music they transmit. A related
purpose is to broaden the concept of music source by considering a
variety of media and “texts” that concern musical meanings and events,
e.g. images, pieces of furniture, luxury items and objects for everyday
use.
Nowadays, it is generally accepted that the sonic quality of medieval and early modern
music is irretrievably lost. Notation, the only sound recording
technology available at the time, was strictly limited to basic
parameters; many of its theoretical and practical aspects are still far
from being fully understood. Indeed, nobody in the Middle Ages would
have been surprised by the famous assertion by Isidore of Seville:
«Unless sounds are remembered by people, they perish, for they cannot be
written down» (Etymologiae, III, 15). It comes as no surprise,
therefore, that the evidence of this vanished soundworld is almost
exclusively visual and literary. However, in the last few decades music
scholars have devoted their efforts to the investigation of sound and
sound aesthetics by widening the remit of what constitutes a music
source or medium. Taking their cue from new philology, sound studies and
material culture, today’s musicology is constantly increasing its
material and visual approach to sources and opening up to
interdisciplinary dialogue and multi-field research.
Our conference will explore these new trends, focusing especially on the following issues:
Firstly, the role of visual arts/visual aspects in medieval and early
modern musical sources: the ways in which decorations, paratexts, mise
en text/mise en page, compilational strategies and book forms interacted
in conveying narratives and identities of authors, patrons and users;
Secondly, the materiality of music, beyond its “bookish embodiment”:
how musical and sonic experiences were mediated by non-musical sources,
such as paintings, portraits, literary works, both narrative and lyric,
and scientific literature (e.g. treatises, chronicles, etc.);
Thirdly, the ways in which not strictly musical artefacts (e.g.
furnishings, intarsias, rings, necklaces, goblets, cutlery, tableware
etc.) might have worked as means to convey musical meanings and/or to
mediate music performances.
Final programme | Programma definitivo
Books, Images, Objects 