MontsM 766: Montserrat, Biblioteca del Monestir MS 766.

OVERVIEW

Size: 550-555 x 385 mm. 5 paper + 13 parchment (ff. 6v-18r) + 155 paper folios with modern foliation; blank folios separate items from 3 onwards; no index.

Scribe: several scribes from the Alamire workshop including Alamire as the principal Hand.

Place and Brief History: Brussels/Mechelen; inherited by Philip II of Spain (great grandson of Maximilian) as indicated in the 1602 inventory of Philip's manuscripts; in 1620 was bought by the Real Convento de las Señoras de la Encarnaçion in Madrid and subsequently acquired by the Benedictine monastery at Montserrat during the 1920s.

Date: 1516-1534; possibly as part of a series of commissions from Margaret of Austria ca. 1524

Covers and Decoration: boards covered with brown leather, brass buckles and corners, blind-tooled lozenge design; miniatures and/or painted initials removed from ff. 6v, 7r and 78v, one painted initial remains on f. 7r and two on f. 79r; inked calligraphic initials opening sections of each mass throughout remainder of source.

Literature:

Herbert Kellman & Charles Hamm (eds), Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400-1550, Renaissance Manuscript Studies I, vol. II, American Institute of Musicology, Hänssler-Verlag, Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1982, pp. 177-178.

Herbert Kellman, "Montserrat, Biblioteca del Monestir, MS 766", in Herbert Kellman (ed.), The Treasury of Petrus Alamire: Music and Arts in Flemish Court Manuscripts, 1500-1535, The University of Chicago Press, 2000, p. 114.

THE MANUSCRIPT

Contents:

Folio information and variants:

ff. 1v-5r: (4 pages)

ff. 57v-94r: (19 pages)

ff. 112v-173r (31 pages)

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