There are many uncertainties about the production and dissemination of vocal polyphony manuscripts from Prague illuminators’ and scribes’ ateliers compared with the dissemination of monophonic vocal manuscripts. The only known “workshop” producing manuscripts with primarily polyphonic music is the one led by Master Jan Kantor Starý († 1582) in Prague’s New Town. However, the number of surviving manuscripts suggests that more “workshops” might have existed in Prague at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. The goal of this study is to ascertain if there were any other ateliers in Prague producing vocal polyphony manuscripts during the analysed period. The findings are based on recent palaeographic and codicological analyses of the selected group of polyphonic sources written by identical scribal hands: Kutná Hora Codex from 1593 (Czech Museum of Music, Prague), Trubka’s Gradual from 1604 (Prague City Archives, Prague), the Partbook of the St. Barbara Literary Brotherhood in Přeštice from 1619 (National Library of the Czech Republic, Prague) and a bifolio from an unknown partbook in the Gradual of the St. Castulus Church from 1580 (Library of the Archbishop’s Chateau, Kroměříž). The comparison of the analysed scribal hands indicates the existence of an atelier that was probably from the milieu of the royal court. Systematic inquiries into the professional production of polyphonic manuscripts should thus continue because that is the only way to better and fully understand the musical culture of the Czech lands during the Renaissance., Natálie Krátká., Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy, and Jan Pulkrábek [překladatel]
The manuscript collection of polyphonic compositions, a so-called Codex Speciálník (Prague, ca. 1485-1500), is presented in the study as a possible starting point for an investigation of the everyday life of a late medieval town. The centre of attention is primarily the alphabetically arranged index of the compositions, which was to facilitate orientation in the musical contents of the codex. The majority of the compositions were copied into the manuscript without the name of the author, therefore the textual incipits were used in the index for the identification of the anonymous songs and motets. and Lenka Hlávková.