ABSTRACT

The illustration of the power of music by Orpheus playing the lute is a topos in Renaissance iconography, and agrees with Ficino's philosophy of the musician as a god on earth. The Orphic associations of the lute and the way they inform even generic issues underline the extent to which the cultural ideas of the instrument tie its symbolism to every level of the Neoplatonic scale, as an agent of the celestial Eros. Lute roses also symbolized the place of man in cosmic harmony according to Pythagorean proportions, as Robin Headlam Wells has shown in his seminal article "Number Symbolism in the Renaissance Lute Rose". The analogic description of the harmonic microcosm as a lute encompasses every aspect of man's body and soul. The speculative associations of the lute are at the core of the strong link between music and the ethical/political sphere, as reflected by the social status of the instrument.