Bonjour,
dans cette miniature relativement connue, issue du De Rerum Naturis de Rabanus Maurus Magnentius (c.780-856), daté de 1023 et conservé dans les archives de l'abbaye de Montecassino (semble-t-il : Cod. Casin. 132), est figuré un instrument de type luth.
Sous chaque cordophone est inscrit un mot en rouge : sous le pluricorde à résonateurs est inscrit "musica", sous la harpe (Rote? psaltérion?) est inscrit "arpha". Sous le luth est inscrit un mot qui reste indéchiffrable.
Je cherche à résoudre ce mystère depuis plusieurs années.
Je transmets l'image l'ensemble, le luthiste en particulier ainsi que le détail de l'inscription.
Quelqu'un parmi vous serait-il en mesure de proposer une interprétation?
Je vous remercie d'avance pour vos lumières expertes.
Olivier
Replies
certes! peut-être ce Ms est-il la copie d'un ancien? mais ma seconde question reste valable :)
Le manuscrit date du 11e s., Rabanus est mort au 9e s., je doute qu'il ait pu avoir connaissance de ce manuscrit après sa mort... ;)
Il existe un article intéressant à propos du lien iconographique entre ce MS C 128 Inf et le Codice magno MS 65 à Piacenza :
Elizabeth C. Teviotdale, The Filiation of the Music Illustrations in a Boethius in Milan and in the Piacenza Codice magno, in IMAGO MUSICAE V 1988.
Milano, Bibl. Amb., C 128 Inf., f° 46r.
as the Ms has been written, the bow just begun to arrive in western Europe. For me the lute player clearly use a plectrum : the folded feather is recognizable
pavlos erevnidis said:
Hello Pavlos Erevnidis,
Thank you for this interesting contribution.
α) three strings lute took the same pear-shape than fiddles after the 10th c. , so that I would not say it is a bowed iinstrument type but a common shape for both plucked and bowed instruments (see the appendix A "The borderline between plucking and bowing in W. Bachmann, 1969). There are several representations of such 3 strings/short neck/pear-shaped lutes in 10th and 11th c.. Here is an miniature showing a long-neck/3 strings/pear shaped lute. I know oonly this about it : Boezio "De Musica"-MILANO, Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Maybe someone could find the exact reference of this 11th Ms?
β) the term pandura was used by both greeks and romans isn't it? I know roman pandura is a 3 strings long neck lute, but I am not sure the term strictly refers to long neck lute. Byzantine iconography often represents pear-shaped lutes.
γ) for me the 6 strings instrument is a theoretic/Music-theory instrument. I could be described as a hexachord with resonators and could have the same function than the tintinamulum. In the Amiens, BM, ms. Lescalopier 002, the thematic is similar to Montecassino miniature with 4 instruments : a lute, a cithara (which is actually a rota), a non-string instrument (a horn is ths case) and a Music-theory instrument (a tintinulum).
δ) Rabanus would have asked to be represented in his own treatise? Should we think Rabanus was a lute player? :)
Although for the α) perhaps there is a problem in the representation of the bow, or long plectrum.
Αγαπητοί φίλοι,
α) The Cythara that Asaph plays in Amiens, Bibl. mun., ms. Lescalopier 002 is a type of a bowed instrument that in Greece nowadays we call… Lyra. For a 12th century finding in Novgοrod (again Novgorοd!) of such an instrument see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_lyra#/media/File:Novgorod_lyra.jpg
β) Pandoura is generally connected with a 3 stringed “long-necked Lute” here we have a “short-necked” case.
γ) The 6-stringed square “psalterio” with the name Musica is the most interesting to me since it is one of the earliest (if not the earliest) representations in Latin and, moreover, that this term is connected to a specific instrument. In LML, as far as I checked, there is not such an indication in the long lemma Musica. (It is a luxury to have an online version of such an important project because always there is the possibility to make corrections and additions.) As for its name and origin, we know that in the Arabic literature there were instruments with the name Armūnīqī (or later Musīqār [also the name for the “musicians”], or even later in Ottoman times as Mûsikâr) but usually those instruments are connected to Pan-pipes. In the Greek literature in the text of Agiopolítis (a Ms of the 14th c.) it is written that Pythagoras made an instrument (όργανον, not λύρα, κιθάρα etc.) initially with 4 strings (he later made it with 7 and 15 strings) and named it Μουσική. For similar, to our case here, “square psaltery” in Greek Mss see:
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_40731_fs001r f. 7v (11th c.)
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.752.pt.1 f. 5r (11th)
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1231 f. 351 v (and 285 v?) (c. 1100)
and 2 somewhat longer ones
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?index=147&ref=Add_MS_19352 f. 188 v, (1066)
http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.752.pt.2 448 r (11th).
δ) as for the mysterious inscription, a question to paleographers of Latin: following the indexes:
a) all three musicians show the text and the inscription is referring to a name of an instrument
b) the 2 musicians show the *lute player (and he shows “his” text). In that case (and supposing that the inscription is not referring to a certain name of an instrument) could we read: (H)rabanus?
Έρρωσθε
Voici un autre document éclairant pour notre sujet : il s'agit du psautier de l'abbaye de Saint-Aubin d'Angers datant du 11e s. (Amiens, BM, MS Lescalopier 2, ff. 11.5v°-11.6).
D'abord l'instrument avec l'inscription Musica peut être mis en parallèle avec le psalterio de David, on se retrouverait dans une représentation symbolique de la musique par l'instrument sous-entendu de David :
Puis un autre instrument — celui dont on cherche le nom — est également représenté sur le folio suivant :
Pour une vue d'ensemble avec tous les instruments représentés, voir la numérisation des folios ici : http://initiale.irht.cnrs.fr
en recherchant Amiens, BM, ms. Lescalopier 002.
"il y a effectivement beaucoup de jeux de regards et de mains dans cette miniature, qui mériteraient d'être étudiés de près. Selon ce qui a été proposé précédemment, le luthiste semble plutôt pointer le texte ou un mot du texte de son index."
Oui. On ne devrait pas exclure la possibilité d'une double signification. On accorde son instrument cordé (selon les regards et l'ouie des joueurs) au ton naturel des cymbales, mais on s'organise selon la science du texte, auquel les trois musiciens pointent.
Je ne sais pas s'il y a beaucoup d'images où une cithare soit accordée au ton d'un second instrument. Je connais des images où le musicien modifie sa gamme, lui tout seul.
Merci
Michael
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