VerBC 761, Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare MS DCCLXI

OVERVIEW:

Size: 226 folios, 570 x 430 mm: opening two parchment, the remainder paper. Transmits a total of 22 items made up of 17 mass cycles, 4 Credos and 1 Te Deum. Original table of contents at the end of source. Original ink foliation, 1r-226r.

Scribe(s): Hieronymus Beltrandi

Place and Brief History: Rome; possibly commissioned for the 1495 wedding between Giorgio Maffei and Isabetta Brenzoni- representative of two distinguished families in Verona.

Date: 1490s

Covers and Decoration: Original covers made from wooden boards with blind tooled ornamental designs lozenge shape and a leather spine and metal bosses and corners. Ties probably made from leather now missing. Highly ornate calligraphic initials throughout, sometimes decorated with floral motives and/or faces; opening two pages magnificently adorned with miniatures and borders. Coats-of-arms- of the Brenzoni and Maffei families on f. 2r.

Selected Literature:

Judith Benfield, “Music at Verona c. 1480-1530”, Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1984.

Howard Mayer Brown, “Music for the Nuns of Verona: A Story about MS DCCLXI of the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona”, in Martin Staehelin (ed.), Gestalt und Entstebung musikalische Quellen im 15. und 16. Jahrhunder (Quellenstudien sur Musikl der Renaissance III), Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 83, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998, pp. 111-124.

Herbert Kellman (ed.), Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400-1550, Renaissance Manuscript Studies I, vol. 4, American Institute of Musicology, Hänssler-Verlag, Neuhausen-Stutthart, 1988, p. 81.

A. Piazzi et. al. (eds), Mille Anni di Musica nella Biblioteca Capitolare de Verona, Centro de Formazione Professionale per la Grafica “Stimmatini” - Verona 1985. For colour reproductions of folio 1v and 2r see pp. 71 and 73.

Alan Herbert Preston, “Sacred Polyphony in Renaissance Verona: A Liturgical and Stylistic Study”, Ph.D dissertation, University of Illinois, 1969.

Joshua Rifkin, “A Scriptor, a Singer and a Mother Superior: Another Story about MS DCCLXI of the Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona”, in M. Jennifer Bloxam et al. (eds), Uno gentile et subtile ingenio: Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Bonnie J. Blackburn, Brepols, 2009, pp. 309-317.