Encounters with music in the study of the History of art: the contribution of the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja)

Abstract

This article aims to report on the encounter between art history and musicology within the professional practice of the art historian and, in this context, to provide the musicologist new knowledge elements for further specialized research. The study has been conducted in the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja, Spain), a monument declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. First, we analyze the presence of music in the plastic arts through the iconography of saint Aemilian biography, including representations, from the XI century and onwards, of the zither instrument used in shepherd life and other cordophone and wind instruments either discovered or restored during the last conservation works at the church of the Yuso Monastery. Several references taken from different documentary sources on the significance of the choir in the monastic life, the varied activities related to the choir area and the acquisition of musical instruments are also given. Finally, the paper presents unknown graffiti we have recently found in the ancient benedictine novitiate, in which musical symbols and notations on songs and dances from the XVII and XVIII centuries are represented.