La iconografía musical de los Beatos de los siglos X y XI y su procedencia

Abstract

The diversity of iconographical influences appearing in the Beatos miniatures is one of the most debated topics in the history of art. Our aim in this paper is to shed light on the problem through an analysis of the musical iconography of twelve codices. This iconography is of the utmost interest for the musicologist because it shows scenes related to the music of secular life, being present for the first time in apocalyptical topics. These scenes introduce musical instruments from different origins (lslamic, Coptic, Byzantine, European and from the Georgian and Caucasic area) as well as from different periods (from late Antiquity and also from the early and full Middle Ages). The study of this organological group proves that the sources used by the miniaturists were diverse and that only a few examples exist which can be described as being a direct copy of the represented object. Our analysis has been based not only on the iconographical sources but also on those supplied by ethnomusicology.