Formatting and Erasing Polyphonic Music In Italian Manuscripts from 1350 to 1425
2019–2022
RFA08
Within the corpus of Western European manuscripts containing polyphonic music, a specific Italian tradition can be distinguished in the 14th and early 15th centuries. These manuscripts contain a musical repertory that takes its name from its era, the Trecento, and consists of secular song genres in Italian (madrigals, ballatas, and caccias), as well as Latin motets and other compositions for liturgical use. The production of manuscripts with Italian-texted polyphonic songs seems to begin around 1350 without antecedents and ends abruptly around 1425. Many of these manuscripts incorporate other repertories, especially French secular song genres (ballades, virelais, and rondeaux) and different types of notation.
The main goal of project RFA08 aimed to analyze the production processes and visual organization in Italian music manuscripts from the first decades of the 15th century, and to further advance non-destructive material analysis in the field of medieval musicology, including the application of multispectral imaging (MSI). The project focused on analyzing previously unresolved questions about the writing processes in these manuscripts and thus about the shaping and reshaping of the original manuscript.
People
Project lead: Andreas Janke