Albion, about your comment on the Caravaggio, I would like to point out that the first printed sheet music made with a printing press was in 1473. Caravaggio painted this splendid scene in the 15th c. As for the stringed instrument we see here, I believe it is a baroque violin which was developed in the 14th c. Before that it was called a vielle. They all have variations of shapes and sounds. We see the vielle in many paintings of the Medieval period, it has a very different and sweet tone.
late 15th c.
Thank you for that music history, dear etabeta! I am a yuuuuge fan of Caravaggio, in spite of his time-traveling. The quality of illumination in that painting is, well, illuminating!
There are artists today who depict Jesus in jeans and a t-shirt, for "relevance." That's what he may have been doing; although since he was called the “Bad Boy of the Baroque”, he may simply have been going for the shock value. Here's a detail from Judith Beheading Holofernes:
