Le mani di Cecilia

Hand Position and Fingering on Keyboards in Italian Iconographical Sources of the Renaissance

Maria Luisa Baldassari

(Musical examples by Maria Luisa Baldassari and Augusta Campagne)

Chapter PDF

The subject of fingering and hand position in Renaissance and Baroque keyboard music has been debated for many years, and the few extant theoretical and practical sources have been thoroughly studied and discussed. Important contributions came from Mark Lindley,¹ Isolde Ahlgrimm,² Maria Boxall,³ Ludger Lohmann,⁴ Bernard Brauchli⁵ and others: primarily those scholars who have studied the treatises mentioning fingering, hand movements and position. The iconographical sources, however, are less frequently taken into consideration, following the (partially correct) reasoning that the representations rarely focus on music-making and that they are subject to extra-musical criteria such as the pictorial style in different eras and places, the destination of the painting, and the behavioural conventions. Scholars who deal with musical iconography, like Mariagrazia Carlone,⁶ clearly state the caveats that one must bear in mind when approaching a representation regarding music: the actual level of verisimilitude, the general context of each representation, the degree of musical knowledge of the painter (if knowable), and so on.

We must, however, not completely discard the information that these pictures give us and that can help us reconstruct the data we lack today: the physical results of fingerings and hand positions and their practical consequences on keyboard technique and interpretation. Iconographical sources present the performer’s body and consequently provide us with further suggestions on how to apply the indications of the treatises.⁷ The numerous representations of musicians at the keyboard differ in detail and setting: some of the paintings show people in the act of playing where it is even possible to see which fingers are in use. In others, especially the oldest ones, the hands rest on the keyboard in a position that is only suggestive of movement: the musicians seem to have either just stopped playing or are about to begin.⁸ All these situations can tell us something about the approach to the keyboard; the most important information regards hand and wrist position.

This field of study is quite vast and includes very diverse eras and styles. I have limited my research to the Italian paintings of the 16th and early 17th centuries, a period when portraits of musicians (and portraits in general) became increasingly frequent: the new role of music-making in aristocratic culture and practice as explained, for example, by Baldassare Castiglione,⁹ allowed painters to pull angelic players down from the sky and transform them into gentlemen and ladies proudly standing in front of a keyboard. My research has taken in consideration around 100 paintings by artists such as Tiziano Vecellio, Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Antiveduto Grammatica, Bernardino Licinio, Carlo Sellitto and others, from both northern and southern Italy.¹⁰ I have mainly selected portraits, since hands and arms are more clearly visible. Representations of musical ensembles, quite a common subject, seldom show enough detail to draw in-depth conclusions.

The theoretical background in keyboard technique required for the analysis of the selected pictures comes from the most important Spanish and Italian treatises and writings dealing with fingering and hand position:¹¹ Arte de taňer fantasía by Santa María, Il Transilvano by Diruta, Conclusioni by Banchieri, Regola by Sabbatini, Porta Musicale by Gentile d’Olevano, and Li primi albori by Penna.¹²

The techniques proposed by these writers are quite different: some of them base a correct fingering on the concept of ‘good fingers’, to be used on ‘good’ notes (identified according to the rules of counterpoint). This principle differs greatly from the modern technique for the piano, which aims to attain a perfect equality in strength and function for all the fingers. Two main systems are in use: Diruta, for example, proposes even fingers, 2^nd and 4th, as good; on the contrary, Banchieri a few years later suggests using the 3^rd finger on good notes. Santa María and, generally speaking, the Spanish writers agree on a ‘good’ 3^rd finger but have a more varied approach. The book that dedicates the most pages to technique, the Arte de tañer fantasía, goes into detail showing different musical figures and solutions for all of them, at times using three or four consecutive fingers and thus disregarding a regular connection between notes and fingers.

Some treatises also offer hints concerning hand and arm position and the way the fingers should press the keys. Taking into consideration both the books and the portraits, three main types of approach seem to emerge:¹³

1. ‘Santa María’ position: low wrist, fingers higher than the hand, bent at the tip and with a hollow between fingers and hand: the so called ‘cat’s paw’. Fingers should hit (herir) the keys and should not be held too far away from them. The instructions refer to all the instrumentos de tecla and to the vihuela.¹⁴

2. ‘Diruta’ position: hand and wrist at the same height, fingers rounded (incoppate); the fingers should rest on the keys and press them without too much strength. Diruta criticizes a conduct of the hand similar to the one described by Santa María, as unsuitable for the organ and its repertoire. However, he says that when playing dance music on the harpsichord the fingers must actually hit the keys, thus establishing a distinction between the technique for the harpsichord and the organ.¹⁵

3. ‘Cecilia’ position: high or very high wrist, straight fingers. Quite common in St. Cecilia depictions from the late 16th century until the end of the 17th,¹⁶ this position finds theoretical confirmation around 1670 in the treatise by Lorenzo Penna that speaks of dita distese (straight fingers).¹⁷ Penna suggests one should avoid keeping the wrist low and the fingers high (possibly a reference to a practice born in an earlier period). The paintings show the same position for both the organ and for different quilled instruments.

The choice of focusing on Italian music and paintings of the Renaissance and early Baroque reflects my personal musical interests but also aims towards a different perspective on early fingering and hand position. The best known studies on early keyboard technique often have the French and German literature of the 18th century as a point of departure, especially C.Ph.E. Bach’s description of his father’s way of playing,¹⁸ and sometimes performers try to adapt their hand to this description even when using a fingering chart from an earlier period or a different country. Hand position and fingering must be considered together for a better understanding of the treatises’ instructions. This is where portraits and paintings can provide us with relevant information, even when what they show us seems unlikely to modern eyes.

16th-century Italian portraits follow new and specific principles governing proportions for the human body, they present a certain amount of realism, and they reflect the physical bearing of the subject, as suggested in writings like Il Cortegiano. People in the portraits of musicians are depicted in an upright, open and relaxed position, arms and elbows are close to the body, the angle between them almost 90° with the hand in a relaxed position on the keyboard: an image of grace and simplicity which is a far cry from late gothic models. This new idea of the dignity and gracefulness of the human body had consequences affecting the representation of musicians and their hands.¹⁹

The connection between technique and beauty is summarized in the words leggiadria e bellezza (gracefulness and beauty) that occur frequently in treatises dealing with keyboard playing: Diruta praises the gravità e leggiadria (composure and gracefulness) in an organist,²⁰ Penna, more specifically, the bella mano (the lovely hand),²¹ a position deriving from correct fingering that makes the hand beautiful to see for the audience. Musicians in the Renaissance and Baroque were required to show a mixture of musical ability and grace, and this same idea guided the way they were portrayed, although this idea changed according to the different concepts of beauty in each era. This also means that grace in playing was not a characteristic separate and independent from technique, but rather a part of it and an integral component of being a musician.

It is uncommon to find representations in early Renaissance Italy of players turning their hands in the direction of the musical line as suggested by Santa María, and I wonder if this depends on the Renaissance ideals of composure and dignity that required the avoidance of inelegant movements. There are no Italian representations that resemble the famous engraving of St. Cecilia by Hendrick Goltzius that inspired the front page of Parthenia²², where the saint’s fingers ‘jump’ in every direction.

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The detailed representation of a keyboard player, together with a singer and a viola player, in Tiziano Vecellio’s so-called Concerto or The three ages (painted c. 1507/08) presents us with a substantial amount of information (Fig. 1).²³

Fig. 1: Tiziano Vecellio, Concerto o le tre età (c. 1507/08), Florence, Galleria Palatina, inv. Palatina n. 185, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023).

The man at the spinet has his hands on the keyboard and seems to be about to play (or maybe has just played some notes) when the viola player stops him by putting a hand on his shoulder.²⁴ The player’s hand position is reminiscent of the description by Tomás de Santa María: the hands are parallel to the keys, with low wrists, high fingers (even if the player is apparently standing) with a hollow between hand and fingers, the right thumb slightly bent inside.

Angels in Flemish paintings playing the portative organ with a very low wrist are often considered as the perfect representation of the Santa María technique.²⁵ In my opinion, the hand and wrist position in this portrait, where the hand is not hanging as in Flemish pictures, but rather rests on the keys, are closer to the instructions of Santa María, who had in mind not only (positive) organs and quilled instruments but also the clavichord; in my experience, such a position is particularly effective when playing such an instrument. This painting comes from the Veneto, the region where Venice is located, and we can see it as proof that Diruta (who lived in Venice) criticized a way of playing that was actually in use. The wrist and hand positions are similar in a later portrait of an anonymous player attributed to Francesco Traballesi (Fig. 2), and also (for the wrist position) in the frontispiece of Andrea Antico’s Frottole intabulate (Fig. 3).²⁶

Fig. 2: Francesco Traballesi (attr.), Uomo alla spinetta (c. 1570), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Inv. n. KS-a-503, CC0 1.0, <http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6605> (accessed 17 July 2023).

Fig. 3: Andrea Antico, Frottole intabulate per sonare organi, Frontispiece (Rome, 1517), personal picture, with permission of the National Library of Prag (Národní knihovna České republiky).

It’s difficult to say which sort of fingering is in use in these three representations: there is no sign of turning of the hand in the paintings, and it is unclear in Antico, even if in this woodcut Antico’s hands are shown in full movement (maybe less composure was required from an artisan such as Andrea Antico?).

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Four pictures showing women at the keyboard present a somewhat different position of the hand; three of them are self-portraits by two famous painters, Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana (Figs. 4, 6, 7). Anguissola and Fontana were both proud of their profession and their self-portraits show their proficiency in various arts.²⁷ Fontana was probably inspired by the older artist for her depiction at the spinet, where we can also see a painter’s easel in the distance: this, a wedding portrait, summarizes the artistic qualities and the domestic virtues of the cultivated bride.²⁸

The general composition and the player’s position are similar in all pictures: a woman standing (or seated, in the case of Fontana) in front of the spinet. The hands are relaxed in at least two of the pictures, but the wrist is higher than in the ones considered before; the position more closely recalls Diruta’s description, where he suggests keeping the hand at the same height as the wrist. We can guess which fingers are playing: in Anguissola’s later portrait (c. 1559) (Fig. 4) the left hand plays a fifth or a sixth on diatonic keys with 5th and 2^nd finger, the right hand probably a single key with 3^rd, with the thumb off the keyboard. The unknown woman in the painting by an unidentified artist, probably from the Venetian mainland, the terraferma, (c. 1545) (Fig. 5)²⁹ seems to be playing two notes with 3^rd (or maybe 5th) and 1^st finger of the left hand while she bends the 2^nd inwards in a funny position: the video examples will show that this position is actually possible and even useful in some circumstances. The right hand has the three last fingers on the keyboard and the thumb off.

Fig. 4: Sofonisba Anguissola, Autoritratto alla spinetta (c. 1559), Althorp, Earl of Spencer Collection, CC0 1.0, Wikimedia Commons, photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France (accessed 12 February 2022).

Fig. 5: Anonymous, 16th century, Portrait of a Lady Playing the Harpsichord, location unknown, Courtesy of the Frick Art Reference Library, Frick Digital Collections (accessed 29 July 2023). I thank Max Bergmann of mdwPress for directing me to the source of this picture.

A reference to Diruta’s described (but not recommended) harpsichord technique comes from the older portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola (1554/55) (Fig. 6) and the one by Lavinia Fontana (1577) (Fig. 7): the right hand fingers of Anguissola are not relaxed, but raised and bent as if they were about to ‘hit’ the keys, just as in Diruta’s description of the way the sonatori da balli play on quilled instruments. A similar position can be seen in the left hand in Lavinia Fontana. This portrait mirrors the preceding picture: left hand active, right hand relaxed. In both situations the right hand thumb is not on the keyboard.

Fig. 6: Sofonisba Anguissola, Autoritratto alla spinetta (1554/55), Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, Inv. n. Q358, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023).

Fig. 7: Lavinia Fontana, Autoritratto alla spinetta (1577), Rome, Accademia di S. Luca, Inv. n. 743, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023).

Traballesi’s portrait (Fig. 2) shows a finger position that is very similar to the one in Anguissola’s later portrait, even if the hand position is quite different. This portrait belongs to the same period as Fontana and Anguissola, though it might have been painted a bit later: proof that many different hand positions coexisted at the same time. Images of players with low wrists are still to be found at the beginning of the 17th century and even later, as can be seen in the St. Cecilia by Antiveduto Grammatica (Fig. 8). A big change in hand position will only take place in the 18th century with the gradual introduction of the passage of the thumb under the other fingers and the great flowering of keyboard technique manuals that prescribe a position similar to the one approved of by C.Ph.E. Bach.

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Fig. 8: Antiveduto Grammatica (attr.), S. Cecilia (post 1611), Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, Inv. n. P000353, Prado Photographic Archive (© Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado) (accessed 17 July 2023).

The painting by Grammatica introduces a new important pictorial subject emerging between the late 16th and the beginning of the 17th century: Saint Cecilia. This saint had been increasingly associated with music, but the ‘discovery’ of her body in Rome in 1599 led to an outburst of representations of Cecilias, usually playing an instrument that is, in most cases (but not always), an organ or sometimes a harpsichord. The saint’s figure sums up many ideals, allegorical figures and actual practices: music as praise to the Lord, ‘lady music’ as incarnation of musical art, women making music at home, and so on.³⁰ The representations of Cecilia at the keyboard, more or less faithful and precise, are a great repository for images of keyboard players.

Fig. 9: Ludovico Carracci, S. Cecilia (c. 1607), Roma, Pinacoteca Capitolina, Inv. n. PC 257, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023)

Some of the Cecilia’s painted from the end of the 16th century onwards show a peculiar position of the hand: a high wrist (sometimes very high) and hand with straight fingers or a little depression between fingers and hand (Fig. 9).

A similar position of the wrist, quite far from any modern keyboard technique, is suggested and investigated in its practical and artistic consequences by Mark Lindley in his study of German Renaissance technique.³¹ The position does not change regardless of whether Cecilia is playing an organ or a quilled instrument, or if she is standing or seated at whatever height. Orazio Gentileschi shows this position in three of his Cecilias (Figs. 10–12).

Fig. 10: Orazio Gentileschi, S. Cecilia (1615–20), Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Inv. n. 1083, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023). The so called ‘spinetta’ might also be a regal.

Fig. 11: Orazio Gentileschi/Giovanni Lanfranco, S. Cecilia (1617–27), Washington DC, National Gallery, Accession n. 1961.9.73, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023).

Fig. 12: Orazio Gentileschi, ‘S. Cecilia’, detail from Circoncisione di Gesù (c. 1607), Ancona, Pinacoteca Civica F. Podesti, Identification n. 1100034669, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023).

The model for the angel playing the organ in the fresco seems to have been Artemisia, Gentileschi’s daughter.³² Besides being a famous painter, she was also a musician, as we know from her self-portrait with a lute;³³ it is possible, therefore, to suppose that the hand position in these paintings is not something totally invented, but instead an actual manner of playing. A further verification of the likelihood of this position comes from the S. Cecilia by the Neapolitan painter Carlo Sellitto (Fig. 13).

Fig. 13: Carlo Sellitto, S. Cecilia (1613), Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, Inv. n. Q 313, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 17 July 2023).

This painting was commissioned by the musicians of the Royal Chapel in Naples, that counted the famous organist Giovanni Maria Trabaci among its members at the time. It seems unlikely that the patron saint of music, painted for a musical chapel by a follower of Caravaggio, would adopt an unreal hand position.³⁴

A partial confirmation of this position of the hand, as well as an allusion to a new concept of gracefulness and bella mano, comes some years later from Lorenzo Penna: in the treatise cited above he speaks of dita distese, straight fingers (the opposite of Diruta’s mano incoppata, rounded hand), and warns against keeping the hand low.³⁵

To conclude this discussion of gentlemen, ladies and saints, we go back in time to a Cecilia painted by Anguissola’s teacher, Bernardino Campi (Fig. 14). This painting is one of the few that actually shows the movement of the hand: here we can finally see clearly the most common type of finger-crossing in use before the 19th century: 3^rd finger over 4th, the right hand turned slightly upward and the left hand visibly turned in the direction of the music, as according to Santa María’s instructions.

Fig. 14: Bernardino Campi, S. Cecilia e S. Caterina d’Alessandria (1566), Cremona, Chiesa di S. Sigismondo, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons (accessed 24 July 2023).

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As mentioned at the beginning of this article, the most important observations that we can derive from an analysis of the paintings concern the position of the hand and fingers. This element is treated only briefly in theoretical writings, and only in a few cases are the consequences of each position explained. Trying out ‘in the field’ the different positions observed in the paintings and combining them with different fingering solutions proposed by the theorists can help us to understand the consequences which each position has on performance and artistic results.

In this practical part of the research I have been assisted by Augusta Campagne, who kindly volunteered to add her experiments to mine: different hands can bring different solutions and this cooperation has led to an enrichment of our knowledge. We confronted fingering, repertoire, impressions and feelings resulting from these experiments, which can be seen in the attached videos.

The common feature in the majority of the portraits is that the right thumb is kept off of the keyboard, while the left one is often on. In the paintings taken in consideration for this study the exceptions to this position are rare, and in those cases the musician is merely resting his hand on the keyboard, not playing. The position matches the indications of the treatises, which usually suggest fingers from 2^nd to 5th for the right hand and 4th/3^rd to 1^st for the left one, at least in passaggi. According to the writers the reason for this choice lies in the weakness of the left hand and especially of the 4th finger, but the reasoning behind the use of the thumb in this hand may also be found in Renaissance repertoire, where the left hand often holds chords with octaves while the right hand plays passaggi and diminutions. Moreover, one must remember that the keys in Renaissance instruments could be quite short and keeping the thumb on them could be more of a hindrance than a help, especially for scales and passaggi.

The position in Anguissola’s later portrait, the ‘Diruta’, is the nearest to the one Augusta Campagne and I grew up with, but we discovered great advantages and interesting results and consequences using the other two. A low wrist (as in Tiziano and Traballesi), gives incredible strength to the fingers and perfect contact with the keys. In addition, the contact between finger and key involves the pad of the finger more, and this allows for a better control of the pressure, exactly as described by Santa María. This approach gives interesting results on the harpsichord and is a really good technique for the clavichord (see Video 1). Trills, for example, can be played more slowly but with more intensity and direction. The general touch is, however, ‘harder’, which brings to mind Diruta’s remark about the sonatori da balli.³⁶ Anguissola’s older portrait shows a relatively low right hand and fingers ready to hit the keys. This technique enhances the rhythm of the dance (see Video 5a).

Video 1: Anonymous, Magnificat (part), ed. in: Keyboard music at Castell’Arquato, ed. H. Colin Slim, 3 vols., CMM 37 (Neuhausen/Stuttgart, 1975–1991), ii, 20.
Maria Luisa Baldassari, ‘Santa María’ position, fingerings inspired by Spanish sources (CC BY-NC 4.0).

A very high wrist, on the contrary (Video 2), gives less strength but greater freedom and relaxation to the fingers: the tip of the finger is more involved than the pad, and the contact with the keyboard is a bit less secure in comparison to the preceding technique because of the lack of weight. But this position facilitates the use of Diruta’s fingering, with the 2^nd and 4th fingers as the good ones, since it makes it easier to pass the 4th finger over the 3^rd; it also better suits the attention given to the 3^rd finger, the longer one.³⁷ Quick trills, especially with the 3^rd and 4th fingers, and passaggi become easier and smoother. The right hand thumb always stays off the keyboard, but this technique may have made its movements easier and thus prepared its shifting under the other fingers in a later period, as is the case with the fingerings written by Alessandro Scarlatti for his toccatas. The high wrist position can also explain why many treatises suggest using the 5th and 2^nd fingers for the fifths, and 2^nd with 3^rd or 3^rd with 4th for the thirds: it is easier to use long fingers for these chords instead of moving the thumb inside the keyboard, and straight fingers can stretch better than bent ones. Depending on the repertoire, the wrist of the left hand can be lower than the right one: in pieces like Chi la dirra (Qui la dira) by Antonio Valente (Video 3) the left hand very often plays chords that include octaves, which are more difficult to play with a high wrist.

Video 2: Ascanio Mayone (c. 1560–27), ‘Ancidetemi pur’, in: Primo Libro di diversi capricci per sonare (Naples: Costantino Vitale, 1603), ed. in: Ascanio Mayone, Diversi Capricci per sonare I (Naples 1603), ed. Christopher Stembridge (Padua, 1981), 24–5.
Maria Luisa Baldassari, ‘Cecilia’ position, Diruta fingerings (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Video 3: Antonio Valente, ‘Chi la dirra’, in: Intavolatura de cimbalo […] (Naples: Giuseppe Cacchio dall’Aquila, [1575/76]), ed. in: Valente, Intavolatura de Cimbalo (Napoli 1576), ed. Maria Luisa Baldassari (Bologna, 2021), 44–7.
Augusta Campagne, ‘Cecilia’ position, slightly lower wrist in left hand. Banchieri fingerings (video by Martin Rainer, CC BY-NC 4.0).

The ‘middle’ position is actually midway between the other two in all aspects: strength, weight, freedom of the fingers, control of the keys. According to our experiments, this position works very well with a finger system where the 3^rd finger is the good one. However, this position is also recommended by Diruta, who prefers even fingers (Video 4). A system using odd fingers (3^rd as the main finger) was used mainly by northern European players, but is also briefly described by Adriano Banchieri³⁸ and was probably a real alternative to Diruta’s fingering in Italy too.

Video 4: Ercole Pasquini (c. 1560–c. 1620), ‘Ancor che col partire’, ed. in: Ercole Pasquini, Raccolta completa delle composizioni note per strumento a tastiera, ed. Marco Ghirotti (Padua, 2012).
Maria Luisa Baldassari, ‘Diruta’ position and fingerings (CC BY-NC 4.0).

The players show different hand positions regardless of whether they are in front of an organ, spinet or harpsichord; players at the clavichord more frequently show a low wrist, but this is not a rule. As suggested before, repertoire could have influenced the choice of hand position: unfortunately, the pictures don’t show any readable music. While sitting high or standing helps in adopting the ‘Cecilia’ position, the portraits also present this position in players sitting relatively low, or show the ‘Diruta’ and ‘Santa María’ positions in people standing (Fig. 15–17).

Fig. 15: ‘Santa María’ position [© photography: Ivan Kitanović].

Fig. 16: ‘Diruta’ position (with straight wrists) [© photography: Ivan Kitanović].

Fig. 17: ‘Cecilia’ position [© photography: Ivan Kitanović].

Starting from the idea that many different positions and techniques could coexist at the same time, Augusta Campagne and I decided to present a video of the same piece played in the three different positions in order to make more evident the differences between the different approaches (Video 5a, b, c).

Video 5a, b, c: Marco Facoli (c. 1540–c. 1585), ‘Aria della Signora Cinthia’, in: Il secondo libro d’intavolatura, di balli d’arpichordo […] (Venice: Angelo Gardano, 1588), transcription from the original by Augusta Campagne.
Augusta Campagne (videos by Ivan Kitanović, all licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0).

a) ‘Santa María’ position (low hands)

b) ‘Cecilia’ position (higher hands)

c) ‘Diruta’ position (middle). ‘Diruta’ fingerings

Portraits can suggest positions that are quite far from our technique: playing a typical 16th-century Italian dance, the Aria della Comedia by Marco Facoli, Augusta Campagne has observed that some left-hand chords, like B flat–f–b flat (octave with a fifth in the middle) are absolutely not playable on the spinettino due to the shortness of the keys and the position of the balance point. Augusta, however, found an unexpected solution: if one bends the central finger touching the f with the third knuckle instead of the fingertip, playing this chord becomes possible (Fig. 18, Video 6).

Fig. 18: Bent second finger [© photography: Ivan Kitanović].

Video 6: Marco Facoli (c. 1540–c. 1585), ‘Aria della Comedia’, in: Il secondo libro d’intavolatura, di balli d’arpichordo […] (Venice: Angelo Gardano, 1588), transcription from the original by Augusta Campagne.
Augusta Campagne, ‘Diruta’ harpsichord position and fingerings (video by Ivan Kitanović, CC BY-NC 4.0).

This ‘revolutionary’ and totally uncommon position finds confirmation in a picture that had previously puzzled me: the left hand of the unknown woman in the portrait from Venetian terraferma (Fig. 5) shows the 2^nd finger bent exactly in the position required to play the central f according to Augusta’s experiment.

Musical portraits can offer the modern performer multiple suggestions, not only in terms of instrumental technique but also regarding the role of music and music performers in society during different periods. Trying to understand and embody the positions depicted in the paintings can help us to deepen our knowledge of the music and its underlying aesthetics.

Summary of the treatises:³⁹

Rich in suggestions on style and technique, the Arte devotes many pages to different possibilities for fingering and to the description of the hand position.

Santa María suggests a hand position with low wrist, middle fingers bent at the tip, thumb and little finger slightly bent inside. Keys must be hit by the fingertip with enough force to obtain a clear pronunciation, fingers should stay near to the keys. When moving up or down, the hand can turn in the direction of the movement.
‘Good’ finger: 3^rd.

Quick notes can be played with consecutive fingers, and in this case the correspondence between good fingers and notes is not observed.

Providing one of the most detailed descriptions of fingering and hand position, this treatise gives information on both technique and style of playing. The hand must be kept in the same direction as the arm and be guided by arm and wrist; hand and wrist must be at the same height, fingers slightly bent (‘incoppate’) and at the same level of the keys.

Diruta suggests that the player avoids keeping the wrist too low and the fingers hooked. He also defines the difference between musici that play organ and sonatori da balli playing the harpsichord: the former touch the keys with a light and relaxed hand, while the latter must hit them to mark dance rhythms and make the instrument play properly.
‘Good’ fingers: 2^nd and 4th.

This manual gives a few hints regarding the fingers both for scales and chords.
‘Good’ finger: 3^rd.

This source only gives information on two-note intervals/chords.

The main principle of this manuscript seems to be that most notes are to be played with central fingers: it is not clear whether there is a preferred finger, since scales begin with the 3^rd finger for the right hand and with the 4th for the left hand.

Gentile devotes a lot of space to the fingers for the chords and intervals in the left hand; his suggestions are similar to those of Banchieri but he gives more possibilities for each chord.

The fingers must be extended and not too high, the hand must not be lower than the fingers.
‘Good’ finger: 3^rd.

Endnotes

Isolde Ahlgrimm, Manuale der Orgel- und Cembalotechnik: Fingerübungen und Etüden, 1571–1760 (Vienna/Munich, 1982)

Andrea Antico, Frottole intabulate per sonare organi (Rome: Andrea Antico, 1517)

Linda Phyllis Austern, ‘Portrait of the Artist as (Female) Musician’, in: Musical Voices of Early Modern Women, ed. Thomasin LaMay (Ashgate, 2007), 15–59

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Versuch über die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen, part 1 (Berlin: Christian Friedrich Henning, 1753)

Antonio Baldassarre, ‘Music Iconography: What is it all about? Some remarks and considerations with a selected bibliography’, in: Ictus: Periódico do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Música da UFBA 9, no. 2 (2008), 69–114

Adriano Banchieri, Conclusioni nel suono dell’organo (Bologna: Heredi di Giovanni Rossi, 1609), <https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ReverseLookup/115414>

Adriano Banchieri, L’organo suonarino (Venice: Giacomo Vincenti, 1611), <https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/6/67/IMSLP408196-PMLP248070-banchieri_organo_suonarino_1611.pdf>

Babette Bohn, ‘Female self-portraiture in early modern Bologna’, in: Renaissance Studies 18 (2004), 239–86

Maria Boxall, ‘Incy wincy spider’, in: The English Harpsichord Magazine 1, no. 4 (April 1975), <https://www.harpsichord.org.uk/ehm-archive/>

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