Explore the Franchinus Gaffurius about the Identity of the sitter of this artwork, Portrait of a Musician.
The architectural historian Luca Beltrami's proposition of Franchinus Gaffurius (1451–1522) became the leading candidate in the early 20th century. Gaffurius was a priest and a prominent music theorist in Milan, court musician for Ludovico Sforza, and maestro di cappella of Milan Cathedral. He is sure to have been acquainted with Leonardo, since—in addition to their shared employer—Gaffurius's 1496 music treatise, Practica Musicae, contains various woodcuts by Leonardo. Additionally, Beltrami proposed that the letters "Cant" and "Ang" were abbreviated from the Latin "Cantum Angelicum" and a reference to Angelicum ac divinum opus, another music treatise by Gaffurius.Doubt has been cast upon this theory since the iconographic evidence does not match Gaffurius to the sitter. Kemp has noted that the letters "Cant" and "Ang" could just as easily stand for "Cantore Angelico", Italian for 'angelic singer'. The subject of the painting was not depicted in a clerical robe, which would have properly identified him as a priest, and the subject of the painting is a young man, whereas Gaffurius would have been in his early thirties at the time of the painting's creation.
Milan Ludovico Sforza Latin iconographic Italian maestro di cappella Luca Beltrami Milan Cathedral clerical robe woodcut Franchinus Gaffurius Beltrami