Introduction

This study of iconography and performance practice is divided into two parts.
Part I deals with the definition of iconography and its relationship to performance
practice. Part II outlines some general principles necessary to the study of
medieval music iconography, and deals with specific cases. These principles
include balancing visual evidence against written sources, distinguishing
between symbol and documentation of contemporary life, and recognizing in art
the historical precedents for instrumental groupings in biblical illustration. A
discussion of depictions of trecento angel musicians, as opposed to
contemporary liturgical scenes, demonstrates that different types of depictions
vary in their value as evidence for performance practice. Finally, a study of the
instruments the trecento angels play leads into the possible role of the double
pipe and the bagpipe in the development of early polyphony.
I
This paper includes the use of the term iconology, as well as iconography.
Iconography, as defined by Erwin Panofsky, is the "branch of the history of art
which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as
opposed to their form."1 Iconography deals with the description of images.
Iconology, on the other hand, involves the study of images and, therefore,
involves interpretation. Emanuel Winternitz, one of the most important writers in
this discipline, defines the subject as follows: "[Iconology is] the analysis and
interpretation, by the historian of music, of pictorial representations of musical
instruments, their players, singers, groups of performing musicians, and all other
kinds of musical scenes.2 James McKinnon, twenty years later, refined that
definition, stating that iconology "seeks to penetrate to the real meaning of a
particular art work after the comparatively prosaic task of determining its
conventional or iconographic meaning has been performed." 3 To McKinnon, the
essential character of iconography deals with ideas, and its definition in simplest
terms is "the identification of subject matter in art works." 4 Its object, however, is
musical thought, as opposed to organologythat field which McKinnon feels has
dominated American music iconographers. 5
Another scholar's definition for iconology is "the study of images, their
formulation, transmission, transformation and their intrinsic meaning," as
distinguished from iconography which to him implies, "the descriptive and
classificatory study of images with the aim of understanding the direct or indirect
meaning of the subject matter represented."6 This is in keeping with McKinnon's
more recent, broader view: music iconography "in its purest form is simply the
iconography of artworks with musicological subject matter, that is to say, the
explanation of a musical picture's content." 7
One of music iconology's primary uses is uncovering the performance practices
of the past. The term performance practice includes all those techniques that
cannot be fixed in a written score, such as how performers hold an instrument,
specific hand and finger positions, which instruments are used in ensembles, and
their relative placement, and so on. Performance practice includes both the
acoustic and the social aspects of a performance's environment: its location (in-

or outdoors, for example); its occasion (festival, marriage, etc.); and the size,
constituency, and behavior of the audience. Pictures provide evidence for these
elements of music-making that words cannot. An artwork depicting an orchestra,
for example, will demonstrate how many performers play each part (important in
determining scoring),8 the spatial arrangement of the musicians, whether a
continuo group is playing, and what its makeup is; and what accessories are in
use (music stands, mutes, etc.). Performance practice also encompasses the
social status of the musician and the manner in which society views the
composer, the performer, and music, in general.9 For example, a portrait of a
court violinist, who wears a satin uniform elaborately bordered in brocade informs
us, at least partially, of this performer's status in society. Similarly, a Brueghel
townsman cradling a bagpipe and dancing amid other peasant folk can relate
many specific details (about the music's milieu, the details of the instrument, etc.)
that most written accounts would lack.
A student of music iconography also requires a considerable knowledge of
symbolism, political movements, theological doctrines, and allegorical languages
that influenced a given artist. Such elements are not remote from performance
practice, since the use of music as a theme to illustrate something in many works
can distort the reality of the music. All that the artwork has drawn on must, to
some extent, be examined if the meaning of the work is to be revealed.
Winternitz cites Charles Burney's lack of knowledge of the language of ancient
Egypt as evidence that iconologists must attempt to be familiar with all sources
for an artwork. In his General History of Music,10 Burney praises Egyptian
musicians for inventing the lute. Burney, however, only saw a picture of what he
thought was a lute on an Egyptian obelisk. He had, however, confused the
hieroglyph for the word "good, which is based on the shape of the windpipe
joined to the heart," with the form of a lute.11
There is also an elemental distinction between realistic and nonrealistic
depiction. "By realistic art most of us mean photographic artthat is, objects
drawn in correct perspective and modeled in light and shade to look threedimensional."12 Medieval artworks, for example, often show performers and
instruments schematically, their details either unclear or obviously unrealistic. An
artist's stylistic limitations often limit the depiction of details. For example, an
illumination of David with a harp from an eleventh-century manuscript (Plate A)
shows a plucking position with crossed fingers that does not seem realistic.
Plate A

King David playing the harp; from an 11th-century manuscript (GB-Ccc 391, p.
24). Used with the permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge.
The crossed index and middle fingers of the right hand appear to be wrong from
the point of view of performance practice. The position of the performer's left
hand is also mysterious: it seems to pluck a single string with four fingersfar
more awkward than using a single digit. 13 Another picture of King David from the
twelfth-century manuscript Hortus deliciarum by Herrad of Landsberg shows a
further example of a seemingly unrealistic hand position (see this picture on p. 13
of the New Grove article, "Iconography"): A plectrum held in the manner shown
would simply fall to the floor. (The artist does not show the thumb, which would
hold the plectrum in place.) A third medieval example which shows a realistic
depiction is a miniature from the thirteenth-century Cantigas de Santa Maria
(Plate B).
Plate B

Woman playing psaltery; from Cantigas de Santa Maria, late 13th century (E-E
b.1.2. folio 260r). Photograph provided and authorized by the Patrimonio
Nacional.
The finger positions of the psaltery player appear to be workable. 14 These
examples demonstrate that we cannot trust every medieval artist's work as
accurate documentation; rather, the iconographer must assess the possibly
useful details of medieval artworks each on their own merits.
Later artworks (beginning with the Flemish) show almost an obsession with the
portrayal of details. This does not mean, however, that they are accurate.
Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece (early sixteenth century), for example, shows
musicians performing on three-dimensional instruments, but the artist has
distorted these instruments and the musicians' playing technique. 15 A painting or
drawing style that shows many clear details can easily lead to a common pitfall
trusting details merely because they are shown.
The iconographer must bear in mind the symbolism in artworks. An example of
the importance of a knowledge of symbols is an interpretation of Hieronymous
Bosch's Ship of Fools, in which a nun and a monk sit at table, singing and playing
the lute. The unknowledgeable viewer might interpret this work as portraying
nothing more than the musical tastes of two clerics of Bosch's time. Leppert
shows, however, that Ship of Fools symbolizes the lust of a corrupt clergy.16
Similarly, one interpretation of the instruments in the same artist's complex
Garden of Delights holds that they become implements of torture for those who
would destroy the world's natural harmony, and the instruments themselves are
distorted.17 Seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings, many of which include
chamber music performances, have the quality of painted snapshots. These
works, however, carry hidden allegorical meaning. Jan Molenaer's Allegory of
Fidelity in Marriage, for example, uses string instruments as symbols of
temperance.18 The man watering his wine is another symbol of moderation.
Moderation and temperance are appropriate to the theme of marital fidelity, but,
as Jane Stevens has so aptly put it, "if the music-making . . . has a largely
symbolic purpose, can it be trusted as a realistic reflection of actual performance

practice?"19
Depictions of eighteenth-century musical ensembles present a similar problem.
According to Christoph-Hellmutt Mahling, these works are intended to show a
family's rank in society,20 and because many of these artworks agree in the
details of performance, Mahling considers them useful in questions of
performance practice. Mahling further demonstrates the value of these works for
the study of performance practice by showing that the spatial arrangements in
many ensembles are those prescribed by Joachim Quantz in his Versuch einer
Anweisung die Flte traversiere zu spielen.21 In other words, these written
contemporary instructions to the performers corroborate, in this case, the pictorial
documentation.
II
In examining matters of performance practice in music iconography of the Middle
Ages, a few basic conditions must be kept in mind. Frank L. Harrison stated in
1978 that, "unlike musicologists concerned with some later eras . . . medievalists
have as yet barely broached the subject known in Germany as
Auffhrungspraxis."22 On the other hand, the pictorial arts of the Middle Ages
demonstrate a special interest in depicting musicians with their instruments. 23 If
there are so many visual sources of performers and musical instruments, why
then is performance practice of early music so little understood? One reason has
to do with the instruments, themselves, few of which are still in existence today.
According to Harrison,
The history of instruments is too often dealt with as if there were indeed an entity
that could be called medieval organologyan idea just as invalid as the
supposition that the history of post-1500 instruments could be treated as an
undivided whole.24
Whenever possible, it is of value to balance visual evidence with written source
material. If there is an account of payments to musicians in a procession, for
example, these should be studied next to an artist's depiction of such a
procession.25 An example of this principle exists in an artist's depiction of the
coronation of Henry IV of England (Plate C). The artist recorded trumpets
sounding at the moment Henry is crowned. This corroborates exactly the written
sources.26
Plate C

The coronation of King Henry IV of England; from Jean de Wavrin, Anchiennes

cronicques d'Engleterre, French, mid-15th century. (MS fr. 75, folio 308).
Photograph provided by the Bibliotque Nationale.
An example showing the importance of a knowledge of symbolism is the
interpretation of a Flemish picture from the Breviary of Queen Isabella of Spain
(ca. 1497, Plate D), which has been variously labeled over time.
Plate D

Levitical musicians playing on the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem while King
David mounts steps; Flemish, late 15th century (MS. Additional 18851, Isabella
Breviary, folio 184v.). By permission of the British Library.
Bowles, in 1983, calls it "Musicians performing on the church steps," 27 while
another caption, from 1968, is "Musicians in the Square Before a Church." 28 In a
particularly incisive study, McKinnon shows that the best caption would be "An
introductory illustration to the gradual psalms; Levitical musicians play on the
steps of the Temple of Jerusalem, while King David looks on and David as pilgrim
mounts the steps."29 McKinnon shows that the performers in this work are not
meant to represent twelve medieval musicians performing together. Rather, they
illustrate a theological point with medieval costumes and instruments. Therefore,
one must weigh the "foreground" visual evidence against the "background,"
hidden meaning in looking for matters of performance practice in music
iconography of the Middle Ages.
Besides taking into account what a scene represents, it is important to realize
that an artist's intentions are not always literal. One must be mindful of the
degree of conventionality underlying the production of images at different periods
of Western art. The Middle Ages and the earlier Renaissance demonstrate this
tendency at its extreme.30
The grouping of angels in trecento artworkwhich derives from artistic, not
musical sourcesillustrates this concept. When trecento artists depict Mary
surrounded by four angel musicians, for example, the latter do not indicate a
grouping of four medieval musicians in an ensemble. Trecento artists, rather,
turned to the motif of David (Plates E and F) surrounded by his four musical
assistants as their model.31 This was

. . . the best means of showing Mary . . . being adored by the angelic choirs.
What better source of praise than the psalms, and what better way to show
angels singingthat is, playing instrumentsthan to borrow the most obvious
and common image of the praise for heavenly things, namely, David with four
assistants.32
Plate E

Christ in Majesty (MS m.742 recto). Photograph provided by the Pierpont Morgan
Library, New York.
Plate F

David as Poet of the Psalms; from the Cathedral in Siena, Italy. Photograph

provided by Professor Enzo Carli.

Despite the artistic conventions, what do trecento frescoes, sculpture, and
manuscript illuminations say about the instruments the musiciansmostly angels
play? "Did the artist paint these musical instruments purely from his
imagination, or do they correspond to actual instruments of the period?" 33 This
question is asked by Federico Ghisi in his study of scenes from the life of Mary
encircled by angel musicians with instruments in the apse of a Romanesque
church at San Leonardo al Lago near Sienna. He judges that "their forms as
shown are certainly of instruments that were played." In another study of trecento
angels, Brown determines that though the grouping of angel instrumentalists is
not necessarily indicative of the medieval ensemble, nevertheless, the painters
painted instruments they knew from real life. Though he qualifies this as being
difficult to prove, he believes that the artworks show biblical stories without,
however, showing influence of the ancient world on the costumes: that is, the
biblical characters are in contemporary dress. Brown postulates, therefore, that
there is not an influence of biblical times on the details of the instruments,
themselves.34 This conclusion is also in keeping with Bowles's opinion that the
sacred genre is of little value in performance practice questions, but that it may
be of value for organology.35 Whether trecento artists help the musicologist to
determine instrumental ensemble practice or not, they at least allow us to see
what instruments were played. The naming of those instruments is something
else altogether, a problem discussed below.
The discussion, so far, has dealt with angel musicians. Angels make up the
largest body of performers in medieval art, and biblical illustration accounts for
most of the subject matter. What about human beings involved in the liturgy?
Why have illustrations of liturgical practice received little attention? There are, in
fact, extant liturgical depictions. Les Trs riches heures (1415-17) by the
Limbourg Brothers contains an illumination of a Christmas Mass. A Commentary
on the Pater Noster translated by Jean Milot (fifteenth-century) in the
Bibliothque Royale of Brussels contains a depiction of Philip the Good at
Mass.36 There are, however, "tens of thousands of angel musicians, elders, and
Psalter instrumentalists" in comparison to "these few mass scenes [which] are
isolated examples rather than representatives of established iconographic types."
Yet there is a "substantial body of medieval and Renaissance liturgical
representation extant, even if existing biblical illustration forms a greater amount
by far." There is even enough illustration to distinguish the mass from the office. A
depiction of the liturgy from a fifteenth-century Dutch missal (Plate G) is one
illustration from this substantial body of works.
Plate G

Performing a liturgical service; from a Dutch missal, 15th century (MS K.2.32,
folio 160). By permission of the Board of Trinity College.
Iconography can also assist in assessing the problem of whether instruments
were used in the liturgy. Brown maintains that "the extent and nature of
instrumental participation in sacred music of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth centuries are by no means clear." 37 Harrison, on the other hand, defines
two distinct contexts in which instruments found acceptance in the ecclesiastical
tradition. Pedagogically, the monochord, organistrum, and tuned bells were
integral to the teaching of music, especially in the larger churches. A twelfthcentury relief of Lady Music shows the tuned bells (Plate H).
Plate H

Music with psaltery, fiddle, and carillon; from the king's door at Chartres
Cathedral, 12th century. Photograph provided by Chartres Cathedral.
By 1400, however, these pedagogical instruments were replaced by instruments
with keys. In the ceremonial context, "the organ was associated with certain new
interpolations in the ritual . . . as an essential concomitant in the performance of
the Sequence."38 The organ stood on a small screen in the gallery; its musical
participation, in addition to the Sequence, consisted of alternating with the
plainsong of the choir, according to Harrison. Many questions remain, however,
in the area of instrumental participation in the liturgy. Brown states that,
To investigate the conventions of scoring, particularly in liturgical music, remains
one of the most important and pressing tasks for the historian of [medieval]
performing practice.39
And McKinnon suggests that there are enough extant liturgical representations to
realize such an investigation.40
With regard to instruments, let us return to the trecento angel musician. Trecento
angels differ from those depicted in earlier centuries:
Thirteenth-century angels were content merely to hold up drapery or to stand
silently by. But shortly after 1300 heavenly messengers can be seen to weep for
the crucified Christ, to offer flowers to the Virgin and Child, or to play musical
instruments.41
For the next two centuries, these messengers from heaven form the most
important class of performersthrough sheer numbersin Italian art, so it is
important to examine the instruments they play. Ghisi, as mentioned above, has
made a careful iconographic study of angel musicians encircling the Marian
frescoes in the church at San Leonardo al Lago. He describes the musicians in
the frescoes of each vault of the apse.42 In one vault, angels form a bas
ensemble with voice, including plucked and bowed string instruments (two
psalteries, two lutes, and a fiddle), a portative organ, and a solo singer. Three
angels sing together in the next vault; their trio suggests a polyphonic lauda. The
final two frescoes include percussion, woodwind, and brass instruments. In one,

angels play long straight trumpets, a kettledrum, a bombard, and a pipe and
tabor. In the other, the celestial musicians play two kinds of trumpet (cylindrical
and conical), cymbals, kettledrums, a tambourine with jingles, a shawm or a
bombard, and an aulos. To this double straight oboe, as Ghisi first describes the
aulos, we now turn our attention.43
In his study of angels, Brown states that the double recorder is the main soft
instrument of the trecento, the bas instrument seen most often in paintings. 44 A
detail from a Siennese painting (ca. 1340) of the Assumption of the Virgin (Plate
I) shows an angel playing this instrument in the left center of the foreground.
Plate I

Mary Ascending into Heaven by the Master of Siena; ca. 1340. Used with the
permission of the Alte Pinakothek Mnchen.
Plate J shows two double pipe players from the Cantigas de Santa Maria.
Plate J

Two men playing double pipes; from Cantigas de Santa Maria, late 13th century
(E-E b.1.2 folio 323v). Photograph provided and authorized by the Patrimonio
Nacional.
With regard to Brown's study, McKinnon comments,
. . . the portative organ must have figured prominently in contemporary music;
while one is both convinced of and surprized at the reality of dual-pipe playing
during the period. We note further the total absence of the transverse flute and
the virtual absence of the recorder . . . . 45
McKinnon speaks of a double-pipe, Brown a double-recorder. Ghisi, in turn, gives
three designative options for the one instrument depicted in the San Leonardo
fresco: double straight oboe, double aulos, and diaulos. All these terms
McKinnon's, Brown's, and Ghisi'srefer to an instrument that, in the various
paintings, looks the same. The obvious problem is that of an accurate
terminology. The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments provides no
guidance in the matter. It lists the aulos only as an instrument used in classical
antiquity; none of the other nomenclaturediaulos, double recorder, etc.
appear as entries in this dictionary. Winternitz, at least, makes some helpful
distinction by identifying double pipes with a disclaimer that he will not discuss
whether all the double pipes illustrated in his article are double reed pipes.
Winternitz, thus, coins a generic term, double pipe. This name is adopted for the
present discussion. This multiplicity of terms proves Gerald Hayes's observation
concerning the history of reed instruments between the early Christian years and
the high Renaissance; he writes, "It is in examining these [reed instruments] that
we notice the only real weakness of instrumental music before the fifteenth
century."46
The heir of the double pipe is the bagpipe, a set of double, triple, or quadruple
pipes in mechanized form. The string counterpart of the bagpipe is the
organistrum. This line from the double pipe to the bagpipe and the organistrum is
important when considering that
Simultaneous occurrences of both these specialized drone instruments [bagpipe
and organistrum] can be documented in pictures through the centuries, in both
the mainstream and side currents of music, in sacred art and folk art, in court

entertainment and fte champtres, up and down the social ladder. This
evidence is particularly interesting for the study of the Middle Ages, when the
organum and its instrumental vehicle, the drone, were important elements in the
origin of Occidental polyphony." 47
An English angel with bagpipe rendered in sculpture (1377, Plate K) shows this
instrument in a sacred artwork.
Plate K

Angel playing bagpipe; English, 14th century. Used with the permission of
Timothy Eckersley.
An anonymous Italian representation of three musicians and two dancers
(fourteenth-century, Plate L) documents its secular use; the performer nearer the
dance plays the bagpipe. Neither instrumentalist plays from music. Performers
generally improvised polyphonic dance music. 48 Even in medieval depictions of
instrumentalists and singers together, only the vocalists read from music;
instrumental musicians perform without it.
Plate L

Sonare et balare; from the Arab book miniature Tacuinum sanitatis in Medicina
(Handbook of Health) by Albucasis, late 14th century (Cod. ser.nov.2644, folio
104 recto). Photograph provided by sterreichische Nationalbibliothek und
Portrtsammlung.
The double pipe, the bagpipe, and the organistrum, as drone instruments, fall
into a larger historical context in relation to performance practice. Winternitz
points out, "the importance of drone music in the face of developing polyphony," 49
an early expression of which is the Notre Dame style with its long melismas over
a held tone or drone, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: School of Notre Dame, two-voice organum; Historical Anthology
of Music, Harvard University Press, 1/28c (excerpt).

What inspired the Notre Dame composers to write in this style? Did the bagpipe,
with its capability of playing two lines similar to the tenor and discant parts in
Figure 1, inspire two-voice organum? If the sculpted angel in Plate L suddenly
had lungs and a real bagpipe, would the angel's music resemble that which is
notated in Figure 1? In other words, does the performance of instrumental music
that we see (but do not hear) in artists' representations influence the notated
sacred vocal music which we can hear? Examples of vocal polyphony imitating

music for brass exist in the late fourteenth century,50 and some mid-fourteenthcentury music, sacred and secular, imitates the sound of instruments. In folk
song, the imitation of bagpipes and drums is common. 51 Did Leonin, Perotin, and
their colleagues imitate instrumental music in the vocal works they composed for
Notre Dame around 1200? The potential to pose such a hypothesis exists
through music iconography.
As predecessor of the bagpipe, the double pipe "existed in Europe after the fifth
century," according to Ghisi. How it was played, however, is not evident since
artists' depictions are like still photographs rather than moving pictures with
sound. A fresco by Martini shows a double pipe player whose finger position of
the right hand is very clear; the left hand looks similar but is partially obstructed
by the shoulder of another musician. It is not evident whether the instrumentalist
played one of the pipes as a drone, or sounded two melodies together
simultaneously. If the double pipe sounded two melodies together, then its music
could have been an instrumental precedent for the discant clausula. If such is the
case, then the double pipe could have played both parts of a clausula like the
thirteenth-century "Hec Dies" shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Clausula for "Hec Dies," Historical Anthology of Music, Harvard
University Press, 1/30 (excerpt).

This hypothesis, arrived at through music iconography, is, of course, only

speculative. A video cassette of these early performances will never be
unearthed in an archeological dig. Music iconography, however, does provide a
window to the past, and as such, it gives us the potential to see the fundamental
difference between music-making in the Middle Ages and now. It is essential to
understand that early music was performed at a time when instruments, people,
and conditions, especially the role of theology and politics, were totally different
from what musicians experience today. If one of the musicologist's major tasks is
to "remove misconceptions about musical practice in the past before recording,"
as Harrison emphasizes, then scholars of medieval performance practice must
"suggest at least general criteria for performance in the inevitably different
circumstances of today."52 But first, the musical practice must be studied as
closely as possible through written and visual sources, that is, through
manuscripts, frescoes, paintings, architecture, and sculpture. These visual
historical documents form a rich encyclopedic display of musical life in the Middle
Ages, and, as such, should be mandatory classroom material for even the most
basic of today's courses in medieval music.
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______. "Remarque sur Iconographic musicale." Revue de Musicologie LI/1
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The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Iconography of Music"
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Panofsky, Erwin. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the
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Harper & Row, 1967.
Pope, Isabel. "King David and His Musicians in Spanish Romanesque
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to Gustav Reese, 693-703. Edited by Jan LaRue. New York: Norton, 1966;
reprint ed., New York: Pendragon Press, 1978.
Reaney, Gilbert. "The Performance of Medieval Music." In Aspects of Medieval
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Salmen, Walter. Haus- und Kammermusik. IV/3 of Musikgeschichte in Bildern,
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______. "The Value of Iconographical Sources in Musical Research." In Modern
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Seebass, Tilman. Musikdarstellung und Psalterillustration im frheren Mittelalter.
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Smits van Waesberghe, Joseph. Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance.
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Stevens, Jane R. "Hands, Music, and Meaning in Some Seventeenth-Century
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Winternitz, Emanuel. Summary of "Further Evidence of Open Strings in Classical
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______. "The Iconology of Music: Potentials and Pitfalls." In Perspectives in
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______. Musical Instruments and Their Symbolism in Western Art: Studies in
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Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the
Renaissance (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1939; reprint ed., New York:
Harper & Row, 1967), 3.
2
Emanuel Winternitz, "The Iconology of Music: Potentials and Pitfalls,"
Perspectives in Musicology (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972), 80.
3
James W. McKinnon, "Musical Iconography: A Definition," RIdIM/RCMI
Newsletter II/2 (Spring 1977): 17. This article contains a clear explanation of the
difference between iconology and iconography.
4
McKinnon, "Musical Iconography," 16.
5
McKinnon, "Musical Iconography," 15.
6
Richard D. Leppert, The Theme of Music in Flemish Paintings in the
Seventeenth Century, 1 (Mnchen-Salzburg: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler,
1977): 39.
7
James W. McKinnon, "The Fifteen Temple Steps and the Gradual Psalms,"
Imago Musicae I (1984): 49.
8
Christoph-Hellmutt Mahling, "Representations of Musical Ensembles and
Historical Performance Practice," RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter III/2 (Spring 1978): 8.
9
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Performing Practice" by
Howard Mayer Brown.
10
Burney, General History of Music, as cited in Winternitz, 82.
11
Winternitz, 82.
12
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Iconography" by
Howard Mayer Brown, 13.
13
The crossed fingers might be the artist's way of showing fingers in motion. The
left hand may actually be damping the strings.
14
Zoltn Falvy, "Images, Instruments, History of Music = Musical Iconology,"
RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter II/2 (Spring 1977): 11.
15
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Iconography" by
Howard Mayer Brown.
1

Leppert, 41.
Leppert, 41. See, for example, the gigantic harp on which a man is crucified.
18
The lute is especially associated with temperance and, therefore, is painted in a
prominent, central position. See Figure 1 in Jane R. Stevens, "Hands, Music, and
Meaning in Some Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings," Imago Musicae I
(1984): 76.
19
Stevens, 102.
20
Christoph-Hellmutt Mahling, "Representations of Musical Ensembles and
Historical Performance Practice," RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter III/2 (Spring 1978): 9.
21
Mahling, 9.
22
Frank L. Harrison, "Tradition and Innovation in Instrumental Usage 1100-1450,"
in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav
Reese, ed. by Jan LaRue (New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed., New York:
Pendragon Press, 1978), 319.
23
Gilbert Reaney, "The Performance of Medieval Music," in Aspects of Medieval
and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, ed. by Jan LaRue
(New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed., New York: Pendragon Press, 1978), 705.
24
Harrison, 319.
25
Edmund A. Bowles, La Pratique musicale au moyen age, (Geneva: Minkoff,
1983), 13.
26
Bowles, 13, 50, 51. For further reference to literary sources only, see Edmund
A. Bowles, "Haut and Bas: The Grouping of Musical Instruments in the Middle
Ages," Publications in the Humanities from the Department of Humanities,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1955): 115-40.
27
The reader is referred to Plate 3 in Bowles, La Pratique, 31.
28
This caption is from Robert Wangerme's Musique Flamande as cited in James
W. McKinnon, "The Fifteen Temple Steps and the Gradual Psalms," Imago
Musicae I (1984): 29.
29
McKinnon, "The Fifteen Temple Steps," 29.
30
McKinnon, "Musical Iconography," 16.
31
This in turn, strengthens David's position in medieval theology as an Old
Testament manifestation of Christ and the four evangelists (see Plate E). For a
depiction of David with his four assistants from the following century, see Plate F.
32
Howard Mayer Brown, "Trecento Angels and the Instruments they Play," in
Modern Musical Scholarship, ed. Edward Olleson (Stocksfield: Oriel Press, Ltd.,
1978), 119.
33
Federico Ghisi, "An Angel Concert in a Trecento Sienese Fresco," in Aspects of
Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav Reese, ed. Jan
LaRue (New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed., New York: Pendragon Press, 1978),
312.
34
Brown, 128.
35
Edmund A. Bowles, "A Checklist of Musical Instruments in Fifteenth-Century
Illuminated Manuscripts at the Pierpont Morgan Library," Notes 30/4 (1974): 759.
36
James W. McKinnon, "Representations of the Mass in Medieval and
Renaissance Art," Journal of the American Musicological Society XXXI/1 (1978):
25. Quotations from the rest of this paragraph are from this same source, p. 25.
16
17

The Christmas Mass is illustrated in Figure 6c on p. 37 of McKinnon's article;

Philip the Good at Mass is illustrated in Figure 4c on p. 33.
37
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Performing Practice"
by Howard Mayer Brown, 376.
38
Frank L. Harrison, "Tradition and Innovation in Instrumental Usage 1100-1450,"
in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustav
Reese, ed. Jan LaRue (New York: Norton, 1966; reprint ed., New York:
Pendragon Press, 1978), 321.
39
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, s.v. "Performing Practice"
Howard Mayer Brown, 376.
40
McKinnon, "Representations," 21-52.
41
Brown, 112.
42
The article by Ghisi is, itself, a good illustration of iconography vs. iconology.
43
See Ghisi, Plates 18a-d.
44
Brown, 128.
45
The passage cited concludes, "the latter circumstance being one that will come
as a great disappointment, to some but comfort, perhaps, to others." James W.
McKinnon, "Iconography," in Musicology in the 1980s, eds. D. Kern Holoman and
Claude V. Palisca. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1982), 88.
46
Gerald Hayes, The New Oxford History of Music, III (London, 1960), 477 as
cited in Harrison, 335.
47
Winternitz, 85.
48
Winternitz, 85.
49
Winternitz, 83.
50
See Harrison, 331 for further treatment of this subject.
51
See Harrison, 333-34 for musical examples.
52
Harrison, 335.