The "Allegory of Musical Inspiration" by Niccolo Frangipane: New Evidence in Musical Iconography in Sixteenth-Century Northern Italian Painting

Abstract

A fine unpublished musical painting that was sold at auction in 1978 under the title Concert, with further identification limited to northern Italy, 16th century, is here shown to be not a genre scene but an allegorical work painted by Niccolo Frangipane in the 1560s. Its stylistic features and choice of motifs still reflect the influence of Giorgione. The theme of the picture, now in a private collection in Celle, Germany, is musical creativity, and more specifically the superiority of the Renaissance conception of inspiration as its source over the medieval tradition of the study of mathematical rules. Underlining the point is the presence of the god Apollo, leader of the Muses, in the form of the laureatus. The combination of mythological and bucolic motifs raises the work onto a literary plane far removed from the level of a simple genre scene. That the painter did not intend to record a social gathering is evident from the inaccurate depiction of the instruments and the fact that they are not actually in use in the scene.