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Samantha Chang, Tim Shephard, Music, gender and the erotic in Italian visual culture of the 16th century: introduction, Early Music, Volume 51, Issue 1, February 2023, Pages 21–24, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/caad003
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In 16th-century Italy, music occupied an ambivalent position in relation to ideals of feminine conduct. On the one hand, it was associated with rational judgement through its long-term theorization within the mathematical quadrivium, founded in Pythagoras and his discovery of harmonic ratios. Both Musica, the personification of the liberal art of music, and the decorous Muses, ancient goddesses of the arts, stood as feminine guarantors of the virtuous nature of this studious pursuit. On the other hand, music was also widely associated with sensation and seduction, bypassing reason thanks to its much-vaunted power to move the passions. This feature in itself had a dual aspect, because music’s moving quality might be harnessed to a pious sensibility within devotional practice—something considered particularly suited to women—or it might equally motivate licentious thoughts among those enjoying love-songs and other characteristically youthful and amorous forms of musical socialization. As a result, numerous conduct books of the period are guarded in their acceptance of women’s musicianship and are sometimes outright hostile to it. Contemporary reactions to different modes of women’s musical participation—singing, playing, dancing, listening—are modulated according to the different bodily operations required for their execution and their potential sexualization.
