Florence, Italy, Opera di S Maria del Fiore. Archivio Musicale, Parte V. Ms. 21, All folios
Physical description
Material: parchment
Number of leaves: i + 20 + i
Format: upright
Page dimensions: 250 x 183
Quire structure: Text version
Other devices: 1. older (but still recent) modern pagination pencil bottom outer margin, 1, 2-40 (p. 4 missed out)
2. modern library pagination pencil bottom inner margin, 1-43 (including endpapers)
Page details (zoom):
Preparation and Copying
All foliosPreparation
Disposition of Voice Parts Key
Signe de renvoi
| Pricking | none visible |
| Ruled grid |
always,
single line to left and right, no lines for text |
| Ruling pattern | highly regular |
| Staves omitted from grid | never |
| Incomplete staves | never |
| Medium and colour of grid | Frequency | Folios | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| brown ink | always | Justification lines only. | |
| Colour of staves | Frequency | Folios | Note |
| brown | always | ||
| Ruling medium | Frequency | Folios | Note |
| triple rastrum | normally | Two different rastra were used: quire ii (pp. 3-22): the repetitive pattern of stave heights is 15, 14, 14 mm with intervals of 15 and 14 mm respectively; quire iii (pp. 23-42): the repetitive pattern is 13, 13.5, 13.5 mm with intervals of 16 mm. | |
| Indentation for initials | Frequency | Folios | Note |
| none | normally | Text and music indented on staves (pp. 7, 24-27, 36-41). | |
| Extra space between voice parts | Frequency | Folios | Note |
| empty ruled staves on grid | rarely | ||
| Space provided for separate text | Frequency | Folios | Note |
| not in dedicated space | rarely | pp. 15, 42 | |
| Adhoc adaptation | Frequency | Folios | Note |
| notation extended into margin | sometimes | 7-8, 11-15, 23, 29, 31, 33, 40, 42 | |
| notation and staves extended into margin | occasionally | 16, 18-19, 21, 32, 37, 41-42 | |
| made for complete additional staves | rarely | 18, 43 |
Copying of text and music
| Language(s) | Italian, Latin |
|---|---|
| Order of Copying |
music first
always |
| Presence/absence of text | Voice part | Frequency | Folios | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| fully texted with one text | all voice parts | normally | ||
| fully texted with one text | discantus | rarely | 19, 21, 34-35 | |
| untexted | all except discantus | rarely | 19, 34-35 | |
| provided with single incipit | tenor | rarely | 21 |
Music
| Colour(s) of notation | brown |
| Type(s) of notation | void mensural |
| Type of notation note | Several different hands. Round/Teardrop noteheards 4-35; rhomboid noteheads 36-43. |
| Monophonic notation | absent |
| Level of calligraphy | fair |
| Non verbal performance instructions | Folios | Note |
|---|---|---|
| end symbol | 4, 38-39 | decorative final barline |
| signes-de-renvoi | 27 | |
| Later changes | Folios | |
| pp. 1-2: free-hand staves drawn with some music on (pen trials?) p. 3: practice semibreves (pen trials?) added to blank ruled staves p. 7: 2 voices of O redemptor motet added to blank ruled page (copied in full pp. 36-39) p. 43: free hand staves drawn, notated with two-voice motet. | 1-3, 7, 43 |
Text
| Types of script | rotonda |
| Types of script note | pp. 3-6, 8-18, 20: the partbook layer of the manuscript was written in brown ink in a rotunda script, with rubrics, initials and paraphs in red. pp. 7, 42-43: cursive script, brown ink. pp. 19, 21: dark brown ink, cursive script; voice names written in a larger script. pp. 22-23: brown ink, cursive (bastarda) script. pp. 24-25, 26-27, 28-35, 36-39: textura by four hands in dark brown ink. pp. 40-41: later sixteenth-century addition, minuscule influenced humanistic script, dark brown ink. For more on the hands, see Cattin 1974, pp. 78-83. |
| Level of calligraphy | fair |
| Colour(s) of text | red brown |
| Multiple texts | no |
| Text repetitions | fairly few |
| Abbreviations | fairly many |
| Non underlaid vocal text |
additional
19, 42, 19: in blank staves 42: in lower margin |
| Liminary text |
pp. 4, 8, 13, 20: liturgical designation
pp. 4-7, 8-18: rubrics in blank staves and margins
p. 4: 'cantus a 4 Jo. Serra.'
p. 7: 'cantus',
4-18, 20 |
| Later changes |
p. 3: pentrials ('cantus')
p. 42: text erased in upper margin
pp. 43-45: pentrials,
3, 42-45 |
Decoration
| Level of Decoration | poor |
| Decoration initial type | Frequency | Folios | Initial type(s) | Size position | Description | Discrepancies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| initials planned | occasionally | 7, 24-27, 38-41 | One stave high, at start of voice part, notation indented on staves. | p. 7: start of tenor only pp. 24-27, 40-41: start of each voice pp. 38-39: start of tenor and bass only. | ||
| penned initials | rarely | 36-37 | calligraphic | One stave high, start of each voice part. |