Dear friends:
Here you have a gorgeous picture. Could you give me a critical point about this picture? It is located in the ital. 568. I suppose that she is Saint Cecilia. On the other hand, why does he hold a hammer? I suppose that he is engraving the music.
Thanks to all of you
Replies
Interesting paper indeed. Thanks Oliver.
For a similar context of this mythology, and how it was used by the encyclopaedists, I also recommend this conference paper by Katy Romanou:
And for completeness, that article I cited is by Davide Daolmi, 'Jubal, Pitagora e la Massoneria' (2006), in Temporum stirpis musica. <www.examenapium.it/meri/jubal/jubal.htm>.
Ralph is certainly correct here. It would be easy to see the bearded male figure as a sort of Pythagoras given the story in Macrobius and others concerning the philosopher's discovery of musical proportions from different weighted hammers (which is naturally incorrect since it is the anvil that determines the tone when struck). Peter Comester in the 12th century decided that it wasn't Pythagoras who discovered music, but the biblical Jubal after hearing his brother Tubalcain the smith hammering out metal. The conflation of Jubal and Tubalcain in Trecento art is well known - the columns on each side in the Pit frontispiece also reference the biblical tradition. The woman is an allegory for Lady music. Nicolò da Bologna painted a similar allegory of the seven liberal arts, and also placed Jubal-Tubalcain in front of her. I (and I am not the first to do so) revisited this all in a recent article in a discussion of the figure of Jubal-Tubalcain in the Modena A manuscript in which I observe that the figure of Jubal-Tubalcain could be used separate from Lady Music as an allegory for music or the knowledge of music - musica.
Jason
Thank you Ralph for sharing with us your enquiries. I agree with it now. It seems pretty clear with that extra information.
Manuel
I think pythagorean hammers are possible (although there are only 2), but it seems to me very unlikely that he would be engraving music (this manuscript is far too early). I have no idea who came up with the Tubal suggestion (and apologies to whoever it was that did, because I am almost certainly redoing your work here). but this does seem the most likely. The image of Tubal (and it is definitely him) on the Florence campanile has a similar wood base with metal structure on top and the hammers in the corner are very similar. Also similar are the hammers featured in the preceding sculpture of Jubal who created music (both images from http://www.oneonta.edu/faculty/farberas/arth/arth213/campanile_reli... - many thanks). This led me to thinking about whether there was any connection between the two names, which led me to finding this fantastic little article, which pretty much explains everything (the main website relates to the composer and theorist Adrian Banchieri). I have no idea who the author is (although I have emailed the website owner to find out), but I think we can now very clearly say that this is Jubal/Tubalkain with elements taken from Pythagoras! Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that the female figure above is necessarily musica (although I think it probably is)...
Ralph
Thanks Ricossa (As always). I contend that Pythagorean hammers is a good explanation. I didn't realize it. But I am not utterly convinced of that because he is hammering the object resting above the stump. For that reason, I supposed that he was engraving the music or something like that...
Sure. It reads as follows: Full-page miniature on original f. I depicts Musica and Tubal, with motto of Capponi family ("ven goth vuel") on scroll below.
According to the census catalogue (see diamm) this is musica and tubal, an old testament character. Not quite sure of his relevance here although the text in the scrolls relates to the capponi family of Florence and there are legends that put tubal in Italy...
Ralph