L' iconografia del Maestro nel Liber Magistri di Piacenza

This study aims to analyse the images of the master found in the Liber Magistri, Codex 65 of Piacenza Cathedral; although the links between the illustrations and the texts have been highlighted primarily in the so-called libellus extra liturgicus, the significance of the images intended for educational purposes merits further analysis. In particular, within this extensive manuscript – conceived both as a liturgical collection and as a didactic textbook – in addition to the images of the choirmaster (precentor) and the master of ceremonies, which appear in some of the initial letters of the Psalter, this essay identifies a pair of figures depicting a teacher and a pupil in each of the four representations of the plagal musical modes (ff. 265r-267v). The iconographic source of these pairs of figures is to be found not so much in the emerging iconography of the university lecturer (in a lecture theatre, seated with a group of students) as in models drawn from medical manuscripts and those relating to health.