• I f - FoMRHI

12.
accurate and the authors demonstrated their own system of perspective. We do not
know why so many authors published unrealistic illustration: presumably for the lack
of historical instructions given to the painters, the lack of technical and graphical
informations (ancient systems of perspective), as well as the lack of actual musical
instruments, which old painters would have had to know. In fact, it is arbitrary to
distingue how many are "the indications of truth" of the evidences we found in
paintings and in books, if we are not able to make such distinctions "storicizmg" the
images.
Surely what we read in the images is a possible matter for arguing. That is, to
superimpose onto the psichological reaction perceived in front of an image what we
already know about the subject depicted. I accept that cognitions grow according to
the number of observation done: but having got informations from pictures it doesn't
mean that we improve our knowledges of technological details of instruments, but
only of artistic details of pictures: I think that it is arbitrary to affirm that the "level of
truth" of an image increases by comparing it with another image, being both images
not less imaginary perceived. Therefore, in my opinion, the "level of truth" of a picture
can only be increased by comparing it with the actual object which it is the image of. I
would like to quote Peter Holman s opinion (Four and Twenty Fiddlers, Qarendom
Press, Oxford 1995 1 , p. 3): "...More generally, pictures reinforce the traditionally idea
that instruments should be defined by their shape. A bowed instrument in a painting
is accepted as a violin if its body shape conforms sufficiently to our notions of what an
early violin should look like - notion that have been fashioned mainly by the
subsequent history of the violin, and die development of its 'classic' shape. Not only it
is perilously close to being a circular argument, but it also places an unreasonable
emphasis on what seems to have been the most variable aspect of bowed instruments
at the time".
According to what almost all contemporary scholars think, we have no ways (nor
reasons) to discern what content of evidence "of truth" is in pictorial images, non only
as mey are products of imagination, but also because the level of "realism" is not
definable. What concerns old pictures in general, it is sufficient to observe me
extremely large number of common objects - buildings, trees and musical instruments
too - not obeying the rules of Renaissance perspective depicted from prehistory to
modern times. Moreover, even E.Winternitz openly admitted drat especially Filippino
Lippi Piero de Cosimo and Lorenzo Costa depicted imaginary musical instruments.
The plain fact is that in order to represent an object, a picture must be a symbol for it, stand for
it, refer to it; and that no degree of resemblance is sufficient to establish the requisite
relationship of reference. Nor is resemblance necessary for reference; almost anything may
stand for almost anything else (Goodman, p.5, but this concept was found already in
S.Augustin's writings). One can explain this way what are deviations from the rules of
Renaissance perspective which so a few old drawings obey. The laws of perspective are
supposed to provide absolute standards of fidelity that override differences in style of seeing
and picturing (Goodman, p.10). It can also be argued, that this statement is not
properly true, because it is impossible to see the picture from the same point of view
from which the painter saw the object (one only has to remember the picture showing
which way a Renaissance painter - Durer and others - drew pictorial images).