Template:DRM images

Digital Scriptorium

Website: Digital Scriptorium

Image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts. Based at the University of California, Berkeley, it includes holdings from many US libraries, with extensive folio-specific information about each source.

Index of Christian Art

Website: Index of Christian Art

One hundred twenty thousand (120,000) images from public and private collections in the English-speaking world plus additional indices; roughly 100,000 are available to the public via fee-based institutional subscriptions. Holdings from early centuries of Christianity to 1550.

Manuscriptorium

Website: Manuscriptorium

The National Library of the Czech Republic started this site to make available digital images of historical materials in its own collections and those of collaborators. its emphasis is on manuscripts, early prints, incubulae, and the like. In addition it is building research tools to support such endeavors. Manuscriptorium constitutes a subcategory of Europeana. Many of its holdings are conveyed in obsolete scripts, for which the site offers a useful character-identification lexicon called Gaiji. Its obviously later sheet-music collection has also been popular.

Polish Folk Instruments

Website: Polish Folk Instruments

Folk bagpipe from the Polish Folk Instrument Museum, Szydłowiec-Radzivill Castle. Photograph by Waldemar Kielchowski. Further description in Polish here

The Museum of Folk Instruments in Szydłowiec, established in 1968, houses the largest collection of folk instruments in Poland and documents rich musical relationships with adjacent regions. Holdings date from the seventeenth century onward and currently number more than 2,000. The collection (which is housed in the Szydłowiecy-Radziwill Castle, is particularly rich in bowed instruments, cymbals, and bagpipes. Some links within the site provide sound files.

Medieval Legends with Music

The Carmina Burana

Website: The Carmina Burana

This florid notation (note particularly the neumes above the A-e-u-i-a (shorthand for "Alleluia"), comes at the end of a short Office (f. 94) in Bavarian State Library MS 00085130, Hss Cgm 4660.

The 11th- to 12th-century collection of poetry and dramatic texts is rich in illustration and many of its texts contain cheironomic notation. Although found in a Benedictine abbey in Bavaria in 1803 and housed today in the Bavarian State Library, its origins point to compilation along the southern fringe of Austria, particularly Carinthia. Its Goliard sources come from Spain, the British Isles, France, and elsewhere in Europe. The texts are predominantly in medieval Latin, with some examples of Middle High German and Provençal. Musical settings of individual pieces are numerous following Carl Orff's 1936 presentation of 24 of the pieces (roughly one-tenth of the collection).

Songs of the Nibelungen

Website: Das Nibelungenlied

File:NiebelungenLied WieGvntherSifridenzvo der hohzit bat bsb00035316...png

Opening stanzas of the song "Wie Gvnther Sifriden zvo der hohzit bat" from Das Nibelungenlied, Bavarian State Library 00035316, Hss Cgm 34.

These poetic texts, considered to date from before 1280, display settings of the legends that inspired Richard Wagner. As is characteristic of those resources preserved for posterity in this period, the script is very carefully prepared, the vellum on which it is preserved obviously sturdy. Each Lied is illuminated by a carmine letter. The texts mention Sifriden (Siegfried), Prvnhilde (Brunhilde), Gvnther (Gunther), and others. The illustration shows the first three stanzas of "Wie Gvnther Sifriden zvo der hohzit bat" (No. 12 of 39). Later portions of the source contain religious songs (Klage).

Watermark Databases

Watermark examination provides a fundamental (analogue) method of sorting and ordering materials that are undated or lack a provenance. They are especially useful for clustering manuscripts by paper type. The combination of digital photography and tools for photographic editing can be combined with extensive existing research on paper-makers to shed new light on musical sources. The sites listed here include watermarks associated specifically with music manuscripts.

The Bernstein Project

Website: The Bernstein Project

The Bernstein Project is a portal currently offering 220,000 watermarks. Forming part of the EU [http://www.memoryofpaper.eu:8080/BernsteinPortal/appl_start.disp Memory of Paper] project, the website provides links to dozens of other websites with information and images of watermarks used from the middle ages onward. Relationships to music manuscripts must usually be determined by the user, but see WZIS below.

WILC: Watermarks in Incuabula printed in the Low Countries

Website: Watermarks in Incuabula printed in the Low Countries (WILC

Many early printing presses operated in the Low Countries. This database lists more than 2,000 of them. It contains large numbers of beta radiographs from incunabla and forms part of the Bernstein project listed separately.

WZIS: Watermark Information System

Website: Wasserzeichen Informationssystem Deutschland

A "bird" watermark from the graphical lexicon at WZIS.

The WZIS is a project of extensive scope. Its goal is to compile a graphical database of watermarks used throughout Europe. The project is based at the Landesarchiv of Baden-Württemberg. A graphical watermark lexicon called Piccard is under development at the Stuttgart Hauptstaatsarchiv. Related lexicons of makers and mills have also been developed. A textual search form is also available. Although we are aware of many other digital collections of watermarks, this one stands out for its tight coupling with music manuscripts, particularly in the large collections of the Berlin and Dresden state libraries, which are in turn linked to the RISM OPAC.