Daniela Castaldo

Pantomime was one of the most popular and successful theatrical genres widespread in all the regions of the Roman Empire from the Augustan age to the fifth/sixth century C.E. It consisted of a performance by an actor who interpreted a mythological episode through complex choreographies, while a chorus sang to the music played by one or more musicians. The written evidence show that there were several types of such a mimetic dances, like the ones described by Xenophon and Apuleius. Among the most important written sources shading light on the different aspect of the pantomime are The dance (ca. 160 C.E.) by Lucian and In defense of the dancers (ca. 361 C.E.) by Libanius: they show that music played an important role in this kind of spectacle since it had to be consistent with the different characters of the story interpreted by the dancer. The visual evidence documenting pantomime, are very scarce and show mostly the typical closed-mouth mask. Moreover, very few examples show actors performing pantomime: among them the most meaningful are the scenes represented on the mosaics of the Roman villa in Noheda (Spain).

Some musical themes represented in terra sigillata reflect the political propaganda of the Augustan regime, as in the presence of Apollo citharoedus, of Sirens and of Hercules with the Muses. This visual repertory shares many features with the Augustan poets (especially the elegists) and with other private art of the Augustan period. Arretine ware potters often included Dionysiac, symposiastic and erotic scenes in their reper- tory, moving well beyond Augustus’ official program. They recall formal and cultural models of the Hellenistic era.

During his several travels to Italy, especially to Rome, the French poet and antiquarian J. J. Boissard (1528–1602) joined the entourage of some of the most impor- tant collectors and connoisseurs of antiquities of that time. Like many others artists, he studied and copied the archaeological objects included in their collections and repro- duced them in his works (Emblematum liber, 1593; Romanae vrbis topographiae & antiquitat- um, 1597–1602; Parnassus cum imaginibus Musarum, 1601). Among them there are several representations of ancient musical themes and instruments: the goal of this contribution will be to identify the archaeological objects copied by Boissard and analyze how these iconographical models were reproduced in the work of some of the most important antiquarians of the eighteenth century, such as Bernard de Montfaucon (1655–1741), Francesco Bianchini (1662–1729) and Jean Benjamin de La Borde (1734–1794)

En Grèce antique, la musique, art des Muses, est une émanation du monde des dieux. Tandis que les instruments sont des inventions divines, le son qu'ils produisent ou le chant qui les accompagne sont dotés, dans les mythes, de pouvoirs particuliers.

The fresco cycles painted by Amico Aspertini (1474/75-1552) in the castle of the Isolani family at Miner-bio, near Bologna, reflect a broader Renaissance perspective regarding the revival of the classical themes and figures. After the damage caused by the Lanzichenecchi during their descent to Rome in 1527, the count Giovan Francesco Isolani had the castle restructured in 1536, and he was probably also the one who commissioned Aspertini to paint the cycle. The composition, executed during the late 1530s, is located in the tower on the north side of the castle: on the ground floor is the Hall of Astronomy with the theme of Apollo and the Muses; on the first floor is the room decorated with theme of Hercules and his twelve labors; and on the second floor is the so-called "room of the adulterous wife", where the paintings are no longer readable. In a larger room located in the other part of the castle, there is a cycle of frescoes showing Mars and others characters from the classical world which are not all totally recognizable today. Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian, who has thoroughly studied these frescoes, pointed out that the theme of Mars probably alludes to the qualities of a warrior who must govern by virtues and free from vices. 1 The choice of Labors of Hercules in the tower is consistent with this theory. In any case, the iconographic program of the three rooms is designed to be unitary, and refer to the different aspects of the lives of the inhabitants. The military aspect is portrayed in the Mars room; the cultural and spiritual aspects in the room with Apollo and the Muses; and the moral virtues in the Hercules room. These are the typical themes of court culture, but treated here in a minor way. They were proposed by the patron, the Isolani family, which was somewhat inferior to the most important Italian noble families at that time. 2 The purpose of these small rooms is not clear, although the hypothesis that they were designed to be studies is plausible and suggestive. Both the themes of Apollo and the Muses and the Herculean labors could be suitable for the decoration of a studiolo: 3 the former theme refers to the harmony of the universe produced by music, and follows the tradition dating back to Plato, Macrobe and Martianus Capella; the latter theme was the celebration of virtue during the Renaissance. 4 It is clearly evident that the iconographic model for the cycle of Apollo and the Muses were the so-called Mantegna Tarocchi, a series of fifty engravings divided into five groups of ten, organized in an ascending way, starting with the human conditions, and continued with Apollo and the Muses, the Liberal Arts, the Cosmic principles and the Virtues, and ending with the Planets and the Stars of the Universe. 5 Drawings of some Muses based on the Tarocchi iconography are also present in the so-called London II codex (ca. 1540), which includes drawings and sketches made by Aspertini during his journey to Rome (1500-1503) where he became strongly interested in classical art and culture. 6 Aspertini was a man of culture and a friend of scholars, philologists and humanists. In the years of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the environment where Aspertini worked enjoyed a moment of florishing culture. In 1505-1506 he frequented the most culturally advanced circles of Bologna that were animated by the Bentivoglio court. At the heart of this cultural expansion was the university of Bologna, one of the greatest and most prestigious in Europe, where important scholars of ancient texts were teaching, such 71