Biography

Renata Pieragostini is a music historian whose interests focus on 14h- and 15th-century Italy and England, with an emphasis on the relationship between music and other fields of intellectual inquiry. Her research (published in Early Music History, Music and Letters, Plainsong and Medieval Music, and Scriptorium) seeks to bring into dialogue the perspectives of musicology and intellectual history. After receiving her PhD from the University of Cambridge (2009), she was a Junior Research Fellow at St Anne’s College Oxford, a fixed-term lecturer in the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge, and a Visiting Scholar in the Musicology Department at Indiana University.   

Project Summary

This project explores Coluccio Salutati’s interest in music-related matters, evident from several remarks in the De laboribus Herculis and a number of letters. These writings provide the point of departure to investigate discussions of music within the intellectual community around the Chancellor, in relation to traditional theoretical learning and contemporary practices.