Illuminated Sacred Music Manuscript Collection

Thirteen individual leaves of rare 15th and 16th century original music manuscripts depicting portions Catholic masses and prayers in Latin, hand drawn and beautifully illustrated with brilliant tempera paints on large vellum sheets.

Each of these individual leaves originally formed part of various larger missals, or bound volumes containing all the words either said or sung in Catholic mass during the entire year, and including the ordinary, proper, and common votive masses and supplementary prayers and masses for certain localities or orders.

Being individual leaves taken from bound volumes, the specific location and date of their original creation and use is very difficult to determine. It appears that most are Southern European (Italian and Spanish), but one may be Central or South American, as noted in the more detailed description below. Dates range from 15th to 16th century, based on evaluation of the style of musical notation, illuminations, and formation of the letters, use of punctuation and abbreviations.

Descriptions include translations of the original Latin when possible and an indication of the placement of the manuscript within the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar.

Titles of materials as listed here are taken from the first line of text on the item itself.