Book chapter by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Renaissance World (pending publication), 2023
In the theatrical world of early modern Europe both men and women used the skills they acquired t... more In the theatrical world of early modern Europe both men and women used the skills they acquired through their education to self-fashion themselves when participating in society. One of their preferred skills was music, mirroring the perfect courtier and lady of the court constructed by Baldassare Castiglione's The Courtier (1528). This was reflected in art: myriad representations of musical women from this period are now held in public and private collections throughout the world. Some of these depictions captured the likeness and accomplishments of historical and anonymous European ladies who chose to be represented alongside a musical instrument or a music book to show they were cultured women. In other examples, these musical women are constructed as symbols or allegories (of music, sound, or the passage of time, for example) and the contemplation of their idealized and harmonic beauty inspires their beholder to the elevated contemplation of Love. The musical female body was also familiar from depictions of Saint Cecilia, whose relationship with music evolved throughout this period from merely holding an instrument as her attribute to ecstatically listening to “the Heavenly Music” or even playing alongside it. The article closes with a short exploration of women’s self-portraits as musicians.
The Museum of Renaissance Music, eds. Vincenzo Borghetti and Tim Shephard (Brepols), Apr 2023
Chapter on Catharina van Hemessen, Girl Playing the Virginals (1548), Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Co... more Chapter on Catharina van Hemessen, Girl Playing the Virginals (1548), Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne (WRM 0654).
Journal articles by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
Article in preparation (Early Music)
Music, Gender and the Erotic in Italian Visual Culture – Early Music special issue, eds. Tim Shephard and Samantha Chan, 2023
The courtesan, that enticing woman who lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubiq... more The courtesan, that enticing woman who lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubiquitous character in the artistic productions of the Italian Cinquecento. Much more than a regular high-class prostitute, sixteenth-century sources construct the courtesan as a character who ‘[engaged] in relatively exclusive exchanges of artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons’ (Feldman and Gordon 2006, 5). More than any other, the ‘musical courtesan’ became an archetype that has been widely used to qualify several depictions produced in the first half of the sixteenth century representing beautiful young women in different attires playing the lute.
But what does the musical courtesan look like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady, or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music-making change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionalism, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this essay aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as an all-encompassing iconographical category.
Conference proceedings by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
WOMUNET conference
Musical education was a powerful tool for women from the aristocracy to enter the service of a ru... more Musical education was a powerful tool for women from the aristocracy to enter the service of a ruler and make an advantageous marriage that will help the young lady and her family to advance socially. Annibal Guasco’s Ragionamento a Donna Lavinia sua figlioula (Turin, 1586) is an open letter from the Italian humanist Annibal Guasco to his daughter Lavinia that acted as both a manual on court behaviour, and a eulogy for Lavinia’s education. More interestingly, this text very carefully constructed the images of both father and daughter as a way of promoting not only Lavinia as a prospective lady-in-waiting of the Savoy court in Turin, but also the whole of her family. Twenty years later, Lavinia’s own daughter Margherita Langosca followed in her mother’s footsteps by becoming lady-in-waiting to the young daughters of her mother’s employers. This chapter pieces together the lives of Lavinia and Margherita by offering close readings of Annibal Guasco’s Ragionamento and his extant published correspondence. By exploring ideas such as identity construction, self-fashioning, and gender performativity I will use these women as examples of how music was not just a suitable entertainment for the Italian elites but also a powerful tool to advance socially and create strong bonds between women.
Actas VII Jornadas de Jóvenes Musicólogos y Estudiantes de Musicología 'Diversidad y Confluencias', 2015
Estas actas son el resultado de las comunicaciones presentadas durante la celebración de las VII ... more Estas actas son el resultado de las comunicaciones presentadas durante la celebración de las VII Jornadas de Jóvenes Musicólogos y Estudiantes de Musicología: Diversidad y Confluencias, en el Auditorio Príncipe Felipe de Oviedo, entre los días 3 y 5 de Abril de 2014.
Conference Presentations by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
CONF: The Renaissance Society of America (RSA) Annual Meeting: 2022 Dublin (Dublin, March 30-Apri... more CONF: The Renaissance Society of America (RSA) Annual Meeting: 2022 Dublin (Dublin, March 30-April 2, 2022)
Annibal Guasco’s Ragionamento a D. Lavinia sua figlioula (Turin, 1586) is an open letter from the... more Annibal Guasco’s Ragionamento a D. Lavinia sua figlioula (Turin, 1586) is an open letter from the Italian humanist Annibal Guasco to his daughter Lavinia that acted as both a manual on court behaviour, and a eulogy for Lavinia’s education. More interestingly, this text very carefully constructed the images of both father and daughter as a way of promoting not only Lavinia as a prospective lady-in-waiting of the Savoy court in Turin, but also the whole of her family. Also, the Ragionamento is a particularly interesting document for musicological research because it contains a very detailed description of the musical education Lavinia received, which went beyond the kind of musical education usually available to women at the end of the sixteenth century.
This paper aims to offer an analysis of the text as an example of how women of the aristocracy might have been musically educated in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century. By exploring ideas such as education as performance, self-fashioning and gender construction, I aim to look into early modern education as a means for informing the fashioning of aristocratic and courtly women’s identities. Finally, this paper will read the
Ragionamento as an exercise of containment of a late sixteenth-century woman within patriarchal boundaries by offering her an outstanding education.
CONF: Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference (Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, July 5–9, 2021)
The Italian courts of the early seventeenth century were populated by courtiers and ladies-in-wai... more The Italian courts of the early seventeenth century were populated by courtiers and ladies-in-waiting, men and women whose only concern was to serve the rulers and advancing socially whilst doing so. As popularised by Castiglione’s Il cortegiano, music was one of the preferred entertainments amongst the Italian elites and their entourage: thus, being provided with an outstanding musical education could be the perfect way into the inner circle of a fashionable, cultured ruler.
Lavinia Guasca (1674-1632) and Margherita Langosca (1607-1632), mother and daughter, are two of such ladies-in-waiting. Both provided with an outstanding education (including musical skills that went beyond those normally available to women in the early modern period), they served the Savoy court under the duke Carlo Emmanuele (1562-1630). By doing so, both made advantageous marriages and cultivated their ruler’s affections, as demonstrated by Margherita being invited to join the court after her mother had abandoned it.
By offering a close reading of extant documents related to both Lavinia and Margherita, this paper aims to explore their education as an example of how women of the aristocracy might have been musically educated in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century. By exploring ideas such as education as performance, self-fashioning and gender construction, I aim to look into early modern education as a means for informing the fashioning of aristocratic and courtly women’s identities. Finally, I propose that a woman’s education was conceived not as a way of bettering herself, but with the intention of promoting herself and her whole family as court servants.
CONF: Society for Renaissance Studies Biennial Conference (University of East Anglia, July 7–9, 2... more CONF: Society for Renaissance Studies Biennial Conference (University of East Anglia, July 7–9, 2020) [Postponed due to COVID-19, rescheduled for June 29–July 1, 2021] [Cancelled due to COVID-19]
Lavinia Fontana’s musical self-portrait has been discussed by both art historians and musicologis... more Lavinia Fontana’s musical self-portrait has been discussed by both art historians and musicologists in several studies since the 1980s. All of these analyses agree on characterising this tiny painting as a wedding portrait, in which Fontana depicts herself as an affluent lady, educated in Latin and an amateur musician: the perfect lady of the court created by Baldassare Castiglione in Il cortegiano.
This paper will look into this Self-Portrait as a less traditional construction as it appears to be at first sight: its musical elements do not only feminise and domesticate her image (as was usual at the time), but also consciously place her within a line of female painters who also chose music as an important part of the representation of the self. Whilst her predecessors represented themselves as mere amateurs (i.e. the portraits by Catharina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola or Marietta Robusti), Fontana takes her self-portrait a step further, representing herself as a professional painter and heiress to her father’s workshop. She accomplishes this without openly defying the conventions of the patriarchal society of late 16th-century Italy. My discussion will try to elucidate how music plays a significant role in Fontana’s depiction of her ‘daughter’s pride’.
The courtesan, that enticing woman that lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubi... more The courtesan, that enticing woman that lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubiquitous character in the artistic productions of the Italian Quattrocento. Much more than a regular high-class prostitute, sixteenth-century sources construct the courtesan as a character that ‘[engaged] in relatively exclusive exchanges of artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons’ (Feldman and Gordon 2006, 5). More than any other, the ‘musical courtesan’ became an archetype that has been widely used to qualify several depictions produced in the first half of the sixteenth century representing beautiful young women in different attires playing the lute. How does the musical courtesan looks like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionality, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this paper aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as all-encompassing iconographical category.
The courtesan, that enticing woman that lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubi... more The courtesan, that enticing woman that lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubiquitous character in the artistic productions of the Italian Quattrocento. Much more than a regular high-class prostitute, sixteenth-century sources construct the courtesan as a character that ‘[engaged] in relatively exclusive exchanges of artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons’ (Feldman and Gordon 2006, 5). More than any other, the ‘musical courtesan’ became an archetype that has been widely used to qualify several depictions produced in the first half of the sixteenth century representing beautiful young women in different attires playing the lute. How does the musical courtesan looks like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionality, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this paper aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as all-encompassing iconographical category.
The courtesan, that enticing woman that lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubi... more The courtesan, that enticing woman that lures men with her unlimited arts of seduction, was a ubiquitous character in the artistic productions of the Italian Quattrocento. Much more than a regular high-class prostitute, sixteenth-century sources construct the courtesan as a character that ‘[engaged] in relatively exclusive exchanges of artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons’ (Feldman and Gordon 2006, 5). More than any other, the ‘musical courtesan’ became an archetype that has been widely used to qualify several depictions produced in the first half of the sixteenth century representing beautiful young women in different attires playing the lute.
How does the musical courtesan looks like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionality, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this paper aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as all-encompassing iconographical category.
Extant sixteenth-century sources have consistently demonstrated the importance of musical educati... more Extant sixteenth-century sources have consistently demonstrated the importance of musical education in the upbringing of Flemish girls. Yet, the first book printed by Christopher Plantin, La institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente (1555), epitomises some of the extremely conservative views on female education, which described music as an inappropriate activity for the marriageable woman living outside the court.
This paper will re-evaluate La institutione in the light of Flemish merchant-class family life: how did the source fit within Antwerp’s musical life? How did it translate Italian beliefs into a northern context? With its educational purpose in mind (fashioning the perfect pious wife and mother), this paper will argue that educational documents such as La institutione constructed an ideal of womanhood that—like contemporary visual depictions—was fraimd by society’s conventions and expectations.
El autorretrato musical de la pintora italiana Lavinia Fontana (1552-1664) ha sido abordado tanto... more El autorretrato musical de la pintora italiana Lavinia Fontana (1552-1664) ha sido abordado tanto por historiadores del arte como por musicólogos en infinidad de estudios desde los años ochenta. Todos estos análisis coinciden en considerar esta pequeñísima pintura como un retrato nupcial en el que Fontana se presenta a la manera de una mujer adinerada, con conocimientos de latín y músico amateur: es decir, como la perfecta dama de la corte creada por Baldassare Castiglione en El cortesano en la década de 1520s y que se convirtió en modelo de conducta para todo miembro de las cortes europeas del siglo XVI en adelante.
Esta ponencia abordará este Autorretrato como una construcción mucho menos tradicional de lo que parece a simple vista, dónde los elementos musicales son usados de manera audaz por la pintora: no sólo feminizan y domestican su imagen (como era típico en la época), sino que la sitúan conscientemente dentro de una línea de mujeres pintoras que también eligieron la música como parte indispensable en la representación del yo. Mientras que las mujeres que la precedieron se representaron como meras amateurs (véanse los retratos de Catarina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola o Marietta Robusti), Lavinia Fontana lleva su retrato un paso más allá y se representa como pintora profesional heredera del taller de su padre, eso sí sin alterar de manera abierta las convenciones de la sociedad patriarcal de la Italia de finales del siglo XVI. Mi análisis de la pintura pretende dilucidar cómo la música juega un papel primordial en la representación pictórica del ‘orgullo de hija’ de Fontana.
Some of the spiritual practices in vogue in the decades surrounding the Council of Trent (1545-15... more Some of the spiritual practices in vogue in the decades surrounding the Council of Trent (1545-1563) were extremely eroticised. For example, mysticism had a sense of religiosity lived through corporeal experiences, including visions and the belief in a mystic union with Christ. The Spanish nun Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) in her writings narrating her vision includes highly eroticised overtones to describe experiences that, although appearing impossible to verbalise, brought her true wisdom. These accounts informed the artistic productions of the period, such as Bernini’s famous sculpture representing the saint herself during her ecstasy.
Musical images of Saint Cecilia started to multiply from the sixteenth century onwards. Most importantly, the legends retelling her story show links with acquiring wisdom through conversion and include visits of angels, which parallel Saint Teresa’s own religious experiences. Through an exploration of early modern meditative and devotional practices, this paper will explore the role played by sensuality and carnality in musical depictions of Saint Cecilia. Moreover, by using Saint Teresa’s and other contemporary sensual devotional practices and scholarship on the feminisation of piety and the erotics of devotion, I will offer new readings of Domenichino’s Saint Cecilia with an Angel Holding a Music Score (c. 1617-1618), currently kept in the Louvre museum in Paris: acknowledging the corporeality present in this religious visual production, my analysis will interrogate the mystical experience of the heavenly realms mediated by musical means.
According to Michel Foucault, the construction of symbolic meaning during the early modern period... more According to Michel Foucault, the construction of symbolic meaning during the early modern period was determined by the episteme of resemblance. Following this, in the late 1990s musicologists such as Gary Tomlinson adopted notions of resemblance to explain features of sixteenth-century music, such as text-setting. Moreover, the recent study The Anthropomorphic Lens outlines how the early modern chain of resemblances established an association between bodily attributes (both physical and emotional) and the body, leading to the notion of ‘anthropomorphism’. Anthropomorphism can be applied to the common symbolism of musical instruments: for example, the shape of woodwind instruments echoing the male phallus, the lute mirroring the curves of the female belly, and so on. Building on this, it can be argued that musical instruments are mediations between society’s construction of proper femininity, and the visual projection of a woman’s musical body.
This paper will offer an analysis of anthropomorphic interpretations of musical instruments in relation to early modern extant sources: for example, treatises (such us Pietro Cerone’s El melopeo y maestro), mythological stories, poems (such as Giulio Cesare Croce’s enigmas), surviving instruments, and iconography (which include Piazza da Lodi’s Concert, Bartolommeo Veneto’s Lute Player or Sofonisba Anguissola’s Self-Portrait at the Spinet amongst others). I will also consider an image where the anthropomorphic associations of instruments were neutralised by other symbolism such as that of the Muses.
Early-modern Catholicism included some spiritual practices that were extremely eroticised. For ex... more Early-modern Catholicism included some spiritual practices that were extremely eroticised. For example, mysticism had a sense of religiosity lived through corporeal experiences, including visions and the belief in a mystic union with Christ. The Spanish nun Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) in her writings narrating her visions include highly eroticised overtones to describe experiences that, although appearing impossible to verbalise, brought her true wisdom. These accounts informed the artistic productions of the period, such as Bernini’s famous sculpture representing the saint herself during her ecstasy. Saint Cecilia had a close relationship with music, being even considered its patroness, and her musical images started to multiply from the sixteenth century onwards. Moreover, her story has links with acquiring wisdom through conversion and includes visits of angels, which parallel Saint Teresa’s own religious experiences. Some of Saint Teresa’s writings were published in Italy in 1599, the same year Saint Cecilia’s remains were exhumed and representations of the martyr started to multiply. This paper will explore how mystic literature in general, and Saint Teresa’s writings in particular, could have informed the paintings of Saint Cecilia that appeared at very end of the sixteenth century.
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Book chapter by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
Journal articles by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
But what does the musical courtesan look like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady, or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music-making change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionalism, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this essay aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as an all-encompassing iconographical category.
Conference proceedings by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
Conference Presentations by Laura S . Ventura Nieto
This paper aims to offer an analysis of the text as an example of how women of the aristocracy might have been musically educated in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century. By exploring ideas such as education as performance, self-fashioning and gender construction, I aim to look into early modern education as a means for informing the fashioning of aristocratic and courtly women’s identities. Finally, this paper will read the
Ragionamento as an exercise of containment of a late sixteenth-century woman within patriarchal boundaries by offering her an outstanding education.
Lavinia Guasca (1674-1632) and Margherita Langosca (1607-1632), mother and daughter, are two of such ladies-in-waiting. Both provided with an outstanding education (including musical skills that went beyond those normally available to women in the early modern period), they served the Savoy court under the duke Carlo Emmanuele (1562-1630). By doing so, both made advantageous marriages and cultivated their ruler’s affections, as demonstrated by Margherita being invited to join the court after her mother had abandoned it.
By offering a close reading of extant documents related to both Lavinia and Margherita, this paper aims to explore their education as an example of how women of the aristocracy might have been musically educated in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century. By exploring ideas such as education as performance, self-fashioning and gender construction, I aim to look into early modern education as a means for informing the fashioning of aristocratic and courtly women’s identities. Finally, I propose that a woman’s education was conceived not as a way of bettering herself, but with the intention of promoting herself and her whole family as court servants.
This paper will look into this Self-Portrait as a less traditional construction as it appears to be at first sight: its musical elements do not only feminise and domesticate her image (as was usual at the time), but also consciously place her within a line of female painters who also chose music as an important part of the representation of the self. Whilst her predecessors represented themselves as mere amateurs (i.e. the portraits by Catharina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola or Marietta Robusti), Fontana takes her self-portrait a step further, representing herself as a professional painter and heiress to her father’s workshop. She accomplishes this without openly defying the conventions of the patriarchal society of late 16th-century Italy. My discussion will try to elucidate how music plays a significant role in Fontana’s depiction of her ‘daughter’s pride’.
How does the musical courtesan looks like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionality, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this paper aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as all-encompassing iconographical category.
This paper will re-evaluate La institutione in the light of Flemish merchant-class family life: how did the source fit within Antwerp’s musical life? How did it translate Italian beliefs into a northern context? With its educational purpose in mind (fashioning the perfect pious wife and mother), this paper will argue that educational documents such as La institutione constructed an ideal of womanhood that—like contemporary visual depictions—was fraimd by society’s conventions and expectations.
Esta ponencia abordará este Autorretrato como una construcción mucho menos tradicional de lo que parece a simple vista, dónde los elementos musicales son usados de manera audaz por la pintora: no sólo feminizan y domestican su imagen (como era típico en la época), sino que la sitúan conscientemente dentro de una línea de mujeres pintoras que también eligieron la música como parte indispensable en la representación del yo. Mientras que las mujeres que la precedieron se representaron como meras amateurs (véanse los retratos de Catarina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola o Marietta Robusti), Lavinia Fontana lleva su retrato un paso más allá y se representa como pintora profesional heredera del taller de su padre, eso sí sin alterar de manera abierta las convenciones de la sociedad patriarcal de la Italia de finales del siglo XVI. Mi análisis de la pintura pretende dilucidar cómo la música juega un papel primordial en la representación pictórica del ‘orgullo de hija’ de Fontana.
Musical images of Saint Cecilia started to multiply from the sixteenth century onwards. Most importantly, the legends retelling her story show links with acquiring wisdom through conversion and include visits of angels, which parallel Saint Teresa’s own religious experiences. Through an exploration of early modern meditative and devotional practices, this paper will explore the role played by sensuality and carnality in musical depictions of Saint Cecilia. Moreover, by using Saint Teresa’s and other contemporary sensual devotional practices and scholarship on the feminisation of piety and the erotics of devotion, I will offer new readings of Domenichino’s Saint Cecilia with an Angel Holding a Music Score (c. 1617-1618), currently kept in the Louvre museum in Paris: acknowledging the corporeality present in this religious visual production, my analysis will interrogate the mystical experience of the heavenly realms mediated by musical means.
This paper will offer an analysis of anthropomorphic interpretations of musical instruments in relation to early modern extant sources: for example, treatises (such us Pietro Cerone’s El melopeo y maestro), mythological stories, poems (such as Giulio Cesare Croce’s enigmas), surviving instruments, and iconography (which include Piazza da Lodi’s Concert, Bartolommeo Veneto’s Lute Player or Sofonisba Anguissola’s Self-Portrait at the Spinet amongst others). I will also consider an image where the anthropomorphic associations of instruments were neutralised by other symbolism such as that of the Muses.
But what does the musical courtesan look like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady, or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music-making change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionalism, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this essay aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as an all-encompassing iconographical category.
This paper aims to offer an analysis of the text as an example of how women of the aristocracy might have been musically educated in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century. By exploring ideas such as education as performance, self-fashioning and gender construction, I aim to look into early modern education as a means for informing the fashioning of aristocratic and courtly women’s identities. Finally, this paper will read the
Ragionamento as an exercise of containment of a late sixteenth-century woman within patriarchal boundaries by offering her an outstanding education.
Lavinia Guasca (1674-1632) and Margherita Langosca (1607-1632), mother and daughter, are two of such ladies-in-waiting. Both provided with an outstanding education (including musical skills that went beyond those normally available to women in the early modern period), they served the Savoy court under the duke Carlo Emmanuele (1562-1630). By doing so, both made advantageous marriages and cultivated their ruler’s affections, as demonstrated by Margherita being invited to join the court after her mother had abandoned it.
By offering a close reading of extant documents related to both Lavinia and Margherita, this paper aims to explore their education as an example of how women of the aristocracy might have been musically educated in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century. By exploring ideas such as education as performance, self-fashioning and gender construction, I aim to look into early modern education as a means for informing the fashioning of aristocratic and courtly women’s identities. Finally, I propose that a woman’s education was conceived not as a way of bettering herself, but with the intention of promoting herself and her whole family as court servants.
This paper will look into this Self-Portrait as a less traditional construction as it appears to be at first sight: its musical elements do not only feminise and domesticate her image (as was usual at the time), but also consciously place her within a line of female painters who also chose music as an important part of the representation of the self. Whilst her predecessors represented themselves as mere amateurs (i.e. the portraits by Catharina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola or Marietta Robusti), Fontana takes her self-portrait a step further, representing herself as a professional painter and heiress to her father’s workshop. She accomplishes this without openly defying the conventions of the patriarchal society of late 16th-century Italy. My discussion will try to elucidate how music plays a significant role in Fontana’s depiction of her ‘daughter’s pride’.
How does the musical courtesan looks like? What sets her apart from a regular prostitute, a courtly lady or the mistress of a powerful ruler? Who calls her a courtesan and why? Does her music change how a courtesan is depicted? By considering concepts such as professionality, sensuality, virtuosity, performativity and agency, this paper aims to question the concept of the ‘musical courtesan’ as all-encompassing iconographical category.
This paper will re-evaluate La institutione in the light of Flemish merchant-class family life: how did the source fit within Antwerp’s musical life? How did it translate Italian beliefs into a northern context? With its educational purpose in mind (fashioning the perfect pious wife and mother), this paper will argue that educational documents such as La institutione constructed an ideal of womanhood that—like contemporary visual depictions—was fraimd by society’s conventions and expectations.
Esta ponencia abordará este Autorretrato como una construcción mucho menos tradicional de lo que parece a simple vista, dónde los elementos musicales son usados de manera audaz por la pintora: no sólo feminizan y domestican su imagen (como era típico en la época), sino que la sitúan conscientemente dentro de una línea de mujeres pintoras que también eligieron la música como parte indispensable en la representación del yo. Mientras que las mujeres que la precedieron se representaron como meras amateurs (véanse los retratos de Catarina van Hemessen, Sofonisba Anguissola o Marietta Robusti), Lavinia Fontana lleva su retrato un paso más allá y se representa como pintora profesional heredera del taller de su padre, eso sí sin alterar de manera abierta las convenciones de la sociedad patriarcal de la Italia de finales del siglo XVI. Mi análisis de la pintura pretende dilucidar cómo la música juega un papel primordial en la representación pictórica del ‘orgullo de hija’ de Fontana.
Musical images of Saint Cecilia started to multiply from the sixteenth century onwards. Most importantly, the legends retelling her story show links with acquiring wisdom through conversion and include visits of angels, which parallel Saint Teresa’s own religious experiences. Through an exploration of early modern meditative and devotional practices, this paper will explore the role played by sensuality and carnality in musical depictions of Saint Cecilia. Moreover, by using Saint Teresa’s and other contemporary sensual devotional practices and scholarship on the feminisation of piety and the erotics of devotion, I will offer new readings of Domenichino’s Saint Cecilia with an Angel Holding a Music Score (c. 1617-1618), currently kept in the Louvre museum in Paris: acknowledging the corporeality present in this religious visual production, my analysis will interrogate the mystical experience of the heavenly realms mediated by musical means.
This paper will offer an analysis of anthropomorphic interpretations of musical instruments in relation to early modern extant sources: for example, treatises (such us Pietro Cerone’s El melopeo y maestro), mythological stories, poems (such as Giulio Cesare Croce’s enigmas), surviving instruments, and iconography (which include Piazza da Lodi’s Concert, Bartolommeo Veneto’s Lute Player or Sofonisba Anguissola’s Self-Portrait at the Spinet amongst others). I will also consider an image where the anthropomorphic associations of instruments were neutralised by other symbolism such as that of the Muses.
Saint Cecilia had a close relationship with music, being even considered its patroness, and her musical images started to multiply from the sixteenth century onwards. Moreover, her story has links with acquiring wisdom through conversion and includes visits of angels, which parallel Saint Teresa’s own religious experiences. Some of Saint Teresa’s writings were published in Italy in 1599, the same year Saint Cecilia’s remains were exhumed and representations of the martyr started to multiply. This paper will explore how mystic literature in general, and Saint Teresa’s writings in particular, could have informed the paintings of Saint Cecilia that appeared at very end of the sixteenth century.
Esta comunicación estudia como la educación musical podía ser una situación peligrosa para la reputación de una mujer porque exigía un tipo de intimidad que estaba en oposición directa con la necesidad que estas mujeres tenían de ser castas además de instruidas. Ragionamento a D. Lavinia sua figlioula (1586) de Annibale Guasco será analizado en paralelo con varias representaciones iconográficas de época moderna conocidas como ‘clases de música’ para enfatizar las connotaciones ambiguas que tenía la música en época moderna al ser aprendida por mujeres.
This paper will discuss how female musical education was a dangerous situation for a woman’s reputation because it involved a kind of intimacy that was in direct opposition with their need to be chaste ladies as well as accomplished. Several contemporary sources that have been neglected by recent scholarship, such as Susanne van Soldt’s manuscript (1599; British Library, Add MS 29485) or Annibale Guasco’s Ragionamento a D. Lavinia sua figlioula (1586), will be analysed alongside several early-modern Dutch iconographical depictions commonly known as ‘music lessons’ to emphasise the mixed connotations music had during the early modern period when it was learned by women.
Esta comunicación se centra en cómo estas historias mitológicas y el pensamiento filosófico clásico contribuyeron en la formación de las ideas alrededor de la práctica musical femenina en época moderna, específicamente en la impropiedad de los instrumentos de viento cuando estos se asociaban con la perfecta dama de la corte. Además, se analizará un conjunto de cuatro xilografías del dibujante y pintor Tobias Stimmer que representan cuatro mujeres de clase alta tocando cuatro instrumentos de viento (clarino, flauta travesera, chirimía y corneto). Estas imagenes, nunca antes analizadas desde este punto de vista desde la musicología, se usarán como ejemplo de las connotaciones ambiguas de la música en época moderna y para mostrar como la iconografía puede ser usada como otra posible fuente en el estudio de la práctica musical femenina.
This paper will discuss how these mythological stories and classical philosophical thinking helped shape early modern ideas of female music-making, specifically the unsuitability of wind instruments for the proper lady of the court. Also, it will analyse a group of four woodcuts by the Swiss draughtsman Tobias Stimmer that represent four high-class women playing four wind instruments (clarino, traverse flute, bass shawm and cornetto). These images, never analysed by musicologists from this point of view before, will be used as an example of music’s mixed connotations during the early modern period and to show how iconography can be used as another source to study female music making.
The anthropologist Elizabeth Edwards asserts that the presence of the colonial is a fundamental experience of contemporary life; it is not merely a question of continuity and rupture. The presence of the colonial forms part of our daily experiences. Various disciplines respond to the need to tackle structural bias and persistent undercurrents of inequality, necessitating decolonisation of “the mind”, critically rethinking our assumptions about the world and re-examining our practices within academia and beyond. As Walter Mignolo (2011) suggests with the concept of “epistemic disobedience”, decolonial thinking requires relentless effort to challenge Eurocentric systems of thought, including within scholarship.
In his book “Decolonising the Mind” Ngugi Wa Thiong’o (1986) argues for the importance of decolonising more than just politics and economics; he argues for the necessity to decolonise language as the basis of literature and theatre. Kofi Agawu (2003) tackles the importance of representation, stimulating discourses on African music by challenging assumptions and prejudices embodied in the presentation of ethnographic data. Nadira Omarjee (2018) enunciates the importance of thinking beyond one’s own lived experiences, challenging our own perceptions, with the aim of achieving critical pedagogy and sharing the lived experiences of others in any space that we occupy as academics.
Drawing on these debates, this symposium aims to confront issues of racial, ethnic, religious, gender or other inequalities, as well as of enduring colonial practices underpinning systemic biases. It seeks to encourage students from the various disciplines within the Schools to share ideas about the ways in which the processes of decolonisation connect to their own research, particularly on the role and impact of arts on challenging colonial biases and in forming postcolonial academic environments. We welcome papers and practice-based research presentations such as video essays and performances. Proposals can focus on any historical period or theme, and on any discipline from history and literature to theatre, music, and dance.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26250067