I looove these guys!

I've always gotten a bang out of this picture of the two late great late-medieval composers, Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois.  My boys are chillin aren't they? Dufay seems to be holding a cigarette - the calligraphic flourish above his right hand looks for all the world like smoke - and there's Binchois, Dean Martin to Dufay's Sinatra, leaning on his harp.  Like any two musicians anywhere, hanging out on break.  As a matter of fact, they're probably late for the next set…

But the Ratpack aside, these guys look to me like musicology's answer to "Ole and Lena." For instance:

"Modena, Bibl. Estense, a. M. 5.24. - written in the margin:

Of a St. Swithen's did Dufay and Binchois find themselves after Mass engaged in the exchange of pleasauntries and pious chitchat with the Abbess, when Binchois did suddenly and loudly make wind.  Later, Dufay turned upon his friend.  'Fool!' he hissed, 'Knave! How come you to let fly before the Abbess a fart?'  'By my faith,' quoth the other, 'I knew not whose turn it was!'" (trans. Dr. Burney)

 I needed something to do while waiting for my master's degree to pay off.