90427 - Musical Heritage of the Ancient World

Learning outcomes

The course regards one of the most significant aspects of the wide cultural heritage inherited from antiquity: music. After completing the course students are able to contextualize the documents which transmitted the ideas and representations of the music of antiquity, to recognize the processes of transmission and modalities of reception from the Middle Ages to today. Students will also be able to manage a bibliography for a research project.

Course contents

Part of the master's degree in "Sciences of the book and of document " the course focusses on the unique aspects of the books and documents concerning music, with or without musical notation, which transmitted the musical knowledge of Greek and Latin antiquity through the Middle Ages to the modern Age. Students will be guided through different types of documents, handwritten and prints. They will also be offered guided listening.

Attending students will receive specific reading indications during lessons and can be followed in individual exercises.

Non-attending students must study all the texts on the program.

Foreign students are required to ask for the program at least three months before the exam, writing to donatella.restani@unibo.it [mailto:donatella.restani@unibo.it]

The first part of the course will cover: the musical heritage of the ancient world and its traces, in particular how this heritage was transmitted to the reading public. In particular, the following topics will be explored: musical treatises up to Boethius, the rediscovery of Aristotle in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and its effects on ideas about music, musical culture in libraries in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The second part of the course will address the ways in which the musical heritage of the ancient world was transmitted to the listening and viewing public. In particular, the case of the music for the first performance of Oedipus Rex in the modern age will be explored.

Timetable: I semester - I period

tel.: 0544 936911 https://corsi.unibo.it/magistrale/ScienzeLibro

 

Readings/Bibliography

D. Restani, L'eredità musicale del Mondo antico, in Musica e società, I, a cura di Paolo Fabbri e Maria Chiara Bertieri, Napoli, Mc Graw Hill, 2012, pp. 229-297.

F. A. Gallo, La biblioteca dei Visconti, in Gallo, Musica nel castello, Bologna, il Mulino 1992, pp. 59-94.

C. Panti, The Reception of Greek Music Theory in the Middle Ages:
Boethius and the Portraits of Ancient Musicians, in A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music, edited by T. Lynch and E. Rocconi, Blackwell-Wiley 2020, pp. 449-460;

D. Restani, Ancient Greek Music in Early Modern Italy: Performance and Self‐Representation, in: A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music, edited by T. Lynch and E. Rocconi, Blackwell-Wiley 2020, pp. 461-472;

D. Castaldo, The Visual Heritage: Images of Ancient Music before and after the Rediscovery of Pompeii, in A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music, edited by T. Lynch and E. Rocconi, Blackwell-Wiley 2020, pp. 473-488.

For the attending students: Further suggested bibliography and listenings will be given during the course.

NON-attending students must study all the texts in the programme.

Optional reading:

C.V. Palisca, Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought, Yale University Press, 1985.

Teaching methods

Teaching can be personalized and attending students will be able to practice an individual exercise that will allow them to combine "knowledge" with " know-how".

To take up the challenge of Education for Sustainable Development (ESS), methods that stimulate skills through active learning will be favored. Therefore, the student will be put in contact with different research strategies which imply interdisciplinary knowledge.

Assessment methods

The exam consists in an interview to assess the student’s critical and methodological skills. Both "Introduction" and the "Special Section" will be considered during the exam. Attending students will introduce their individual research during the last lessons. Each student will be given a source (text or image) to analyze according to the methodological guidelines provided. Particular emphasis will be given to the students ability to manage sources and bibliography in order to obtain the necessary information and to illustrate topics and issues finding connections between them.

Non-attending students will only be tested on the readings specifically indicated in the programme.

The assessment will be based on: knowledge of the subject matter; concept analysis and synthesis; clarity of expression, proper terminology. Students who show proficiency in knowledge and critical perspective, as well as proficiency in expression and technical vocabulary will be granted the highest marks. Students who show they have studied, but in a mnemonic way, and are able of synthesis and analysis expressed adequately, will be granted of medium marks. Students who show basic knowledge, but inadequate vocabulary, will have a pass. Students who show insufficient knowledge, inadequate vocabulary and don't know appropriately the bibliography, will not pass the exam.

 

Teaching tools

Audiovisuals, pc, films and stereo.

Students with DSA are requested to contact the Professor for the activation of adequate support tools provided for the exam.

Students can take 2 more CFU attending the Didactic Laboratory of Music Archaeology (MusicArcheoLab).

Responsible: prof. Donatella Restani

Staff: prof. Daniela Castaldo (Università del Salento), dr. Paolo Bonora, dr. Giovanna Casali and dr. Šarūnas Šavėla(Università di Bologna)

Content: The educational project of the Music Archeology Laboratory proposes the realization of scientific projects, of an educational nature, for the enhancement and use of ancient musical goods, mainly preserved in archaeological museums or in the dedicated sections of generalist museums.

Started around 2013, the first census of the musical instruments of Antiquity in the Italian museums (from 6th BC to 7 AD), has concerned above all the museums of the central regions, southern and Sicily. It has allowed to individualize around 50 archaeological finds, particularly boxes of resonance of ancient lyrai constituted by carapaci of turtle, fragments of aulos in bronze, wood, bone and ivory, bells and bronze cymbals, bells, rattles and bones. The results are provisional and I think that an investigation more deepened can allow to go up again to other finds.

In 2020-2021 the activity of the Laboratory will concern the debugging of the Thesaurus of the digital Repertoire of the ancient musical instruments /Repertorium electronicum Instrumentorum Musicorum Antiquorum (RIMAnt).

The Thesaurus, which is modulated on the basis of the Archaeological Finds (RA Thesaurus) and the Musicai Instruments (SM Thesaurus) of the MIBACT, takes into account other Italian experiences, for example: Museum of the sound landscape (https: // museopaesaggiosonoro. org /), and European ones, for example: "Musique et danse de l'Antiquité" (MEDDEA) designed by Sibylle Emerit (CNRS, HiSoMA, Lyon) in the context of the IFAO's activities (see, for example: https: //www.ifao.egnet.net/actus/manifestations/ma682/), concerning the Egyptian area.

Objectives: In the academic year 2020-2021 the activity of the Laboratory will concern in particular the development of the Thesaurus in view of the preparation of the RIMAnt database, which will be managed through HEURIST, "a free, open-source database platform".

The annual objectives will be the following:

- focus on the fields of the Thesaurus for cataloging the instruments;

- comparison with Thesaurus of other relational type databases of similar subjects;

- definition of the Thesaurus' fields and setting up for cataloging the instruments;

- bibliographic searches;

- transfer of data already collected in the prototype form.

Max number of students: 10

Hours and Calendar:

Monday 16:30-18:30

2021 February 8th, 15th

March 15th

April 19th

Online

Access: send an email to the teacher in charge donatella.restani@unibo.it

 

Office hours

See the website of Donatella Restani