Alexander Guthrie Stewart wrote:
The hourglass and skull with bone in it's mouth are related to alchemy?
Not that I've ever read of. Where do they get these ideas from? Is there a newsletter?
Yearsley is a music Professor at Cornell:
http://music.cornell.edu/people/faculty/?page=cudm/facultyCtrl&action=detail/id=38
I assume the attached article is by him. His attribution of esoteric interests to Bull seems to be based entirely on his interpretation of the symbols in the portrait:
"A fine portrait of Bull (fig.1) hangs in the library of the Faculty of Music at Oxford. It was painted in 1589 and bears the inscription 'anno aetatis suae, 27'. In one corner of the picture are a skull and crossbones and an hourglass. These are not symbols of mortality but the alchemist's symbols of victory of life over death: Bull may have been interested in the hermetic sciences (as were others with whom he came into contact, including Hunnis and the Elector Palatine)."Attachment: John Bull.pdf (Downloaded 3988 times)
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