Music

Music personified belongs to the second programme of the Urbino studiolo decorations — the Liberal Arts — which complemented the Famous Men portraits by depicting the intellectual disciplines that underlay Federico's claim to the title of uomo universale. Music's inclusion among the Liberal Arts reflected the Quadrivium — arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music — and the Muse of Music was depicted with her distinctive instrument and score. Justus van Gent's Flemish approach to the figure brought a solidity and spatial depth to the allegory that distinguished it from Italian treatments of the same subject.

The Music allegory is characterised by a carefully rendered musical instrument — probably a lute or portative organ — whose strings or pipes are depicted with the same technical accuracy Justus brings to Ptolemy's armillary sphere. The figure's robes are handled with the Flemish multi-layer oil technique that gives them a translucent depth unavailable in Italian tempera.