ModE M.1.13, Modena, Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria, MS α M. 1.13 (Lat. 457; olim V.H.10)

OVERVIEW:

Size: i+224+i parchment folios, 560 x 385 mm. Transmits 18 mass cycles, most of the last is missing. Table of contents at beginning of source. Each mass numbered on recto folios, top right hand using Roman numerals I-IXVIII; “modern” pencil foliation a little left of Roman numbering.

Scribe(s): Fra Philippo di San Giorgia, possibly under the direction of Johannes Martini who may have revised several of the masses to be copied into the source.

Place and Brief History: Ferrara. Made for the ducal chapel choir of Ercole I d’Este. Was one of several choir books copied ca. 1480 for the chapel. Along with the Estense library, this source was taken to Modena in 1595 after the pontifical expulsion of the Este from Ferrara. Remnants of a second Liber Missarum are preserved in the Modena Archivio di Stato Biblioteca. The masses in this source, ModAS s.s., are similarly numbered with fragments from Masses XII (the Missa L’homme armè by Busnoys and XIII (the Missa Je ne demande by Agricola) extant.

Date: Perhaps as early as 1478/9 and no later than 1480/1.

Covers and Decoration: Leather on boards with inscription Liber Choralis in gold on spine. Painted initials for all voices on most folios throughout the source - painted in gold, red, blue, purple and green using mainly foliage and filigree designs.

Selected Literature:

Charles Hamm & Herbert Kellman (eds), Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400-1550, Renaissance Manuscript Studies I, vol. II, American Institute of Musicology, Hänssler-Verlag, Neuhausen-Stutthart, 1982, pp. 167-168.

Lewis Lockwood, Music in Renaissance Ferrara 1400-1505, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, pp. 213-227.

Elaine Moohan, “Sources of Sacred Music for the Chapel Choir of Ercole I d’ Este (1471-1505), Duke of Ferrara and the Masses of Johannes Martini”, Ph.D dissertation, University of Manchester,1993.

Murray Steib, “Hurculean Labours: Johannes Martini and the Manuscript Modena, Bibliotecca Estense MS. α M.1.13”, Early Music History, vol. 33, 20-14, pp. 182-257.