Musica Restituta. Retrieving Hidden Chant from Medieval Palimpsest Manuscripts

Project Information

MUSRES

Grant agreement ID: 101030908

DOI

10.3030/101030908

Project terminated on 2 June 2023

EC signature date 8 April 2021

Start date 1 July 2022

End date 30 June 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 171 473,28

EU contribution

€ 171 473,28

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TRENTO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MUSRES (Musica Restituta. Retrieving Hidden Chant from Medieval Palimpsest Manuscripts)

Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The main objective of MusRes is to contribute to answering pivotal questions about the history of European music on the early dissemination of musical notation in western Europe, as key to understanding the earliest phases of the creation of visual representation of music.
Each of the different notational families used its own repertory of signs and techniques for the representation of melodic inflections. Neumatic notation was, therefore, a system of communication which worked fully only within the limits of pre-established musical conventions. The study of these shapes allows us to understand how medieval singers reacted to the cognitive challenges of converting sounds into visible form, as well as how different individuals and institutions shaped their music scripts by potentially revealing previously unrecorded systems of notation, filling important lacunae in the chronology and geography of primary sources.
This period also corresponds to the first emergence of books dedicated to music: the earliest surviving books containing the notation for chants for the Mass date to ca. 900, while the earliest complete compilation for the chants of the Divine Office come from the late 10th c. The time span, which covers a crucial phase in the history of European music, will also allow the observation of patterns of development in the production of written musical media over three centuries. Moreover, the presence of at least two different registers, usually the verbal and the musical text, made the written artefact a multimedia and multi-layered object that could be accessed with different levels of literacy. The study of contents' organisation and production techniques of early medieval chant books provides insights into how cultural manifestations such as religious worship and ritual were preserved and transmitted in a material object.
MUSRES had five interconnected research objectives:
- to substantially advance our understanding of the cognitive and material processes, as well as of the graphic forms and techniques employed by early singers to represent the sounds of music through the first-ever digital reconstruction and study of five 'lost' chant manuscript sources;
- to further define the intersections between cultural processes of canonisation of religious ritual, and their first transmission in material, manuscript forms, set in their broader historical contexts;
- to innovate in the field of digital image editing techniques applied to palimpsests manuscripts;
- to foster research in Digital Humanities by developing the first on-line platform for the study and editing of palimpsest sources, achieving significant longer-term and cross-disciplinary applications;
- to promote the knowledge of the beginnings of vocal music in Europe for impact in the wider society.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The MUSRES survey has been compiled by consulting existing bibliography, printed and on-line catalogues, as well as on-line databases (e.g. MMMO or MANUS). All data was double-checked to the highest degree possible, especially in cases where on-line digital reproduction of the manuscripts was available. MUSRES enquired directly to libraries and archives about the existence of previously unrecorded palimpsests. In order to present and disseminate research results, as well as to achieve impact in the field of musicology, MUSRES will create a permanent database, to be hosted on the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music web space, which will feature all data collected in the survey. Each entry included the following information: location (library/archive/institution); shelfmark; codicological information (n. of folios, dimensions, state of conservation); content/s; date/s; type of musical notation/s; bibliography; and links to other digital resources.
One aspect of the imaging process that was explored was whether the number and types of interference bandpass filters in use was critical to the discovery and elucidation of the palimpsest texts. There was considerable frustration that often, even when we could see there was erased text on the leaf, we were unable to make it any more accessible, despite the success of similar MSI techniques on more modern manuscripts. One reason for this (apart from their age) may have been multiple re-use of these particular sources: more recent manuscripts have usually only been scraped and re-used once, but some of the MusRes sources appeared to have been re-finished three or possibly more times. The team concluded that had the poorer results been due to e.g. an insufficient range of filters or a flaw in the process, then the number of leaves that did produce good results could not have been as successful as they clearly were. Therefore, the technique was appropriate, but the state of the some of the materials defied the process. We have established therefore that there may be a limit to the effective use of MSI on palimpsest materials using the techniques and technology currently available to us.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The most significant discoveries were found in the following manuscripts. A music book for soloists – Mantua, MS 295: MusRes led to the unexpected identification of four leaves, reused in the 12th c., coming from a lost original cantatorium, a very rare type of music book in 11th-c. Italy, shedding new light on the production of specialised music books (the cantatorium contained only the chants for the soloist, who was usually the best singer in an ecclesiastical institution) which are normally considered among the most ancient types of musical compilations. Only four leaves survive that were reused to make an eight-leaf fascicle by placing them horizontally and then folding in half. The original ink was faded, which may be the reason for the destruction of the music book and its 'recycling' in the later manuscript. The MusRes images allowed us to date the original manuscript more precisely to the second half of the 11th c., and identify the type of musical notation as West-Frankish.
Chants for the Liturgy of the Hours – Assisi, MS 432bis: MusRes trials allowed us to observe for the first time in great detail the content, organisation and presentation of chants hitherto hidden in the palimpsest folios. Some of the earliest traces of notation and transmission of liturgical chant in early-medieval Italy emerged. The folios reused in the compilation of MS 432bis came from an early 10th-c. antiphoner, and contained chants for the Divine Office, written in early West-Frankish notation. The antiquity of the source, and the amount of material surviving, ca. 100 melodies, were so far not known. The musical and textual content will now become part of the most significant corpus of sources for the study of early chant books in medieval Europe.
Transalpine connections – Vercelli, MS CCVIII: the identification of the original music manuscript and its dating to the early 10th c. thanks to the MusRes multispectral imaging, shed light on a previously obscure phase in the history of early music writing, namely that of the diffusion of the so-called 'Breton' type of notation into northern Italy. The palimpsest folios, found as part of a few fascicles at the end of MS CCVIII, were originally part of a gradual, the book containing the chants of the Mass. This previously unidentified source will contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of movement and exchange of notational expertise among singers from distant regions both sides of the Alps.

Flyer for Outreach event