Col tempo musical time, aging and sexuality in 16th-century Venetian paintings Hatter, Jane

RESUMEN: A number of Italian paintings from the first decades of the 16th century represent musical time in a similar way-an arched hand with fingers in the process of being raised and lowered with the beat. This action is described by contemporary music theorists and is now commonly referred to as "tactus". Looking at connections between musical paintings by Sebastiano Florigerio, Giorgione and a number of related artists, and contemporary discussions of musical time in music and medical treatises, I argue that the tactus was a symbol for aging, time and sexual decorum. These paintings use tactus as a foil for the passage of time, a necessary element for the emerging "Iconography of Age" tradition. Tactus was seen as a musical pulse, and pulse was believed to change with the different stages of life and health. The symbol of the tactus is strongly connected with men in their virile middle age. These paintings reveal expectations for decorous engagement in social music-making that were different for men and women. Palabras clave: Sebastiano Florigerio, Giorgione (1477?-1510), iconografía, género, sexualidad, tactus