VatS 35: Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Cappella Sistina 35

Size: 550-5 x 426; ii + 207 + i paper folios; Blank folios: 11v-12r; 21v-22v; 135v-136r; 186v-187v; 191v-192r; 203v-204r; modern pencil foliation on recto folios at lower center, which replaces original ink numbering that is incomplete; item numbering I-CLV in upper right-hand corners on opening recto folios of the item; a further ink foliation on lower right-hand corners of recto folios, added in the 18th- or 19th century; no index.

Scribe: One principal scribe who copied ff. 2v-178r and 184v-186r and four other scribes who collectively copied ff. 178v-184r and 188v-208r.

Place and Brief History: Città del Vaticano; put together from separate gatherings with the main scribe making copies during the period c. 1488-1492 and the remaining scribes during c. 1492-1495; the first extant manuscript copied in the Sistine Chapel. In parts has suffered substantial ink bleed-through with music on some staves almost impossible to read, for example stave 10, f. 207v.

Date: c. 1488-1495.

Covers and Decoration: Brown leather over boards with a blind tooled central diamond design and decorative borders; brass clasps, bosses and studs; calligraphic ink and watercolor initials with additional motivic decorations in the forms of floral tracery, animals and human faces.

Literature:

Herbert Kellman (ed.), Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music 1400-1550, Renaissance Manuscript Studies I, vol. IV, American Institute of Musicology, Hänssler-Verlag, Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1988, pp. 41-42.

Jesse Rodin, Josquin's Rome: Hearing and Composing in the Sistine Chapel, AMS Studies in Music, Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 108-117.

Adalbert Roth, "Die Entstehung des ältesten Chorbuches mit polyphoner Musik der päpstlichen Kappele: Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Fondo Cappella Sistina Ms. 35" in Gestalt und Entstehung musikalischer Quellen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, ed. Martin Stachelin, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998, pp. 43-63.

THE MANUSCRIPT:

Contents:

Folio Information and Variants:

ff. 28r-71r, 104v-110r, 137r-148r, 158v-170r 206v-208v

ff. 170v-176r

LINKS

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