Pre-Festival Associate Event
One-day Academic Colloquium open to the public

‘On the ten-stringed psaltery’: musical instruments as symbols in the Middle Ages

Musical instruments abound in medieval iconography and literature, so much so that modern craftsmen were able to build replicas of medieval instruments working from images and texts. But did medieval artists and writers always intend to depict or describe real instruments?  In this colloquium, five speakers will explore a number of medieval iconographic and textual case-studies where musical instruments are not treated at all, or not only, as real objects, but rather as symbols and allegories referring to poetic, scholarly or religious notions…

Speakers: Jacopo Bisagni (NUI, Galway); Ann Buckley (Trinity College, Dublin); Isabelle Marchesin (Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris); Michael Shields (NUI, Galway); Olivier Szerwiniack (Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens). 

Tea/Coffee and a light lunch provided free of charge.