Rediscovery and 'invention' of antiquity in the humanistic musical imagination

In the context of the humanistic recovery of the classical cultural heritage, the rediscovery of musical themes and figures of antiquity had an extraordinary impact on the creation of a multifaceted imaginary, in which literary motifs are combined variously with elements of the ancient figurative vocabulary, but also with references to executive theories and practices of the time. Through a series of significant examples, the essay shows how the reactivation of ancient images, often directly connected to the activities and reflections on the role of music elaborated by humanistic circles, took place in different ways, along paths that were not always linear, through filming, reinterpretations and transpositions of registers which often led to new series of images: not only figurative, but also verbal and spectacular.