As part of School of Music’s "Fridays w/ Faculty" series, Associate Professor of Musicology & Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies
Jane Hatter gave a presentation on "Matrona Musica: Didactic Presence in the Material Culture of Noble Women’s Lives c. 1500” in Dumke Recital Hall.
Abstract: The iconographic trope of personifying Musica along with all the other liberal arts as female, in everything from crude woodcuts for educational treatises to gilded frescos for elite princely chambers, might seem so generic as to be without special significance for female musicality in the decades around 1500. There are several representations of Musica on specifically feminine artifacts of material culture and in each the lady is actively engaged in making music. What does it mean that Matrona Musica made appearances in the chambers of new brides and how do these objects fit within the lives and activities of the noble women who would have both viewed and used these objects on a daily basis?