The Royal Music Association Research Study Days – 2019, entitled Iconography as a source for Music History, were organised by Patrick Huang (SOAS) and Susan Bagust (RMA) at the School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS] of the University of London. These Study Days explored what one may legitimately call iconographic proto-philology – that is to say, a composite approach and methodology, allowing one to determine and to identify by critical deduction the invisible ties between the intangible and tangible elements of a given research, and thereby to formulate well-founded hypotheses, and to arrive at sound conclusions concerning studies in Iconographia. Within the context of the RMA Study Days – 2019, iconographic proto-philology is by definition a research method which takes into account the interplay of various aspects of general culture inherent in an iconographic study, namely: music, musicology, organology (the history and study of the classification and manufacture of musical instruments), mathematics, geometry, astronomy, liturgy, chromatology, chemistry, terracotta, ceramics, ceramic painting, black-figure pottery, mural painting, frescoes, metallurgy, sculpture, archæology, architecture, palæography, semiology, codicology (the study of manuscript making), secular and biblical history, art history, literature, poetry, philosophy, political science, sociology, etc., and, at the same time, reconstitutes the missing links in a given chain of events (linguistic, literary, poetic, artistic, musical, etc.), making this composite approach of iconographic proto-philology a most reliable and valuable research tool in studying the sources of music history presented during the RMA Study Days – 2019, organised under the auspices of the University of London (Institute of Musical Research [IMR]) at the School of Oriental and African Studies.< Réduire