Bologna Q15 is one of the great musical witnesses of the early fifteenth century, a monumental choirbook preserving the soundscape of sacred polyphony in northern Italy. Now held in the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna, the manuscript gathers an exceptionally rich repertory of Mass movements, motets, hymns, laude, Magnificats, and French songs. Its pages reveal a world in which liturgy, civic memory, and artistic ambition converged around the refined musical culture of Padua, Vicenza, and the Veneto.
A Manuscript Made and Remade
The codex was copied in stages between around 1420 and 1435, with copying completed by 1440. Its history is unusually dynamic. Earlier leaves were removed, initials were cut out and reused, and new repertory was inserted, creating a layered anthology shaped by changing taste and practical use. The result is not a static book but a living musical archive, revised over time by a compiler attentive to both tradition and innovation.
Notation, Repertory, and Voice
Written in black mensural notation with red and void coloration, the manuscript preserves more than three hundred compositions. It is especially significant for the works of Guillaume Du Fay, Johannes Ciconia, Zacara da Teramo, and Johannes de Lymburgia, while also transmitting music by Italian, northern European, and English composers. Many pieces are unique, giving Bologna Q15 an indispensable place in the study of early Renaissance polyphony.
A Choirbook of Cultural Memory
Its motets honor rulers, bishops, doges, prelates, and civic figures, transforming music into a vehicle of devotion, patronage, and political remembrance. In Bologna Q15, the page becomes both score and monument: a record of voices once sung, institutions once served, and a musical imagination moving toward the Renaissance.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Bologna Q15": Bologna Q15. The Making and Remaking of a Musical Manuscript facsimile edition, published by Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2008
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