2-735-649 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Music (from the Tarocchi, series C: Liberal Arts, #26), before 1467. By the late Middle Ages, the artes liberals--Grammatica, Dialectica, Rhetorica, Geometria, Arithmetica, Astronomia, and Musica--began to be represented in the visual arts as female allegorical figures. In this engraving, music is personified as a young woman seated upon a swan and playing a recorder, known simply as a flute in the 15th century. At her feet are numerous musical instruments including a portative organ, lute, shawm, harp, and rebec. The swan can be interpreted as a symbol of song, based upon the ancient belief that the bird, which is mute all its life, sings in exquisite tones shortly before it dies.