La Compagna (Testudio

Peter De Cleyn La Compagna

baked and smoked earth, metal, wood

(45 x 22 x 12 cm)

From TESTUDO:

'The companion, the comrade, the partner, the associate, the partner, the companion, the companion. Here: the other half and the joy of two halves, two like-minded souls that together form one whole. And this after the piece ' La Compagna' by the Italian lutenist Francesco da Milano (1497-1543). He shared with Michelangelo the nickname Il Divino, the divinely inspired artist. Da Milano was also very influential, until more than a century after his death. In his book ' De subtilitate reru ' from 1551, the Italian mathematician and philosopher Geronimo Cardano described a phenomenon that occurred with two lutes in the same room. A straw on a string of one lute suddenly vibrated and jumped when the same note was played on the other lute. A simple physical phenomenon now appears. Poetic souls such as the Dutch writer Jacob Cats (1577-1660) linked this 'coincidence' to the inexplicable attraction between two people who did not know each other beforehand. The joy of recognizing a like-minded soul, la Compagna."