The Early Music Show - 08/11/2008

In the 15th and 16th centuries, portraits played an inportant role in every aspect of human life, and enabled artists to convey messages about themselves. During the Renaissance it was believed that a person's apperance mirrored their soul. Catherine Bott visits the Renaissance Faces exhibition at the National Gallery, and with the guidance of Duncan Bull from the Rijksmuseum and David Fallows from Manchester University, examines the first known portrait of a professional musician, a diptych by Piero di Cosimo of the leading Florentine Renaissance architect Guiliano da Sangallo and of his musician father Francesco Giamberti da Sangallo. They also discuss the paragone between architecture and music, and illustrate their talk with music written in Florence by Dufay, Heinrich Isaac and Binchois.