The Morrill Music Library is proud to announce a new acquisition of significance: a volume of fifteen Canto partbooks bound together in an English binding of the early seventeenth century carrying the Tudor rose on front and back. This fascinating item contains mostly Italian madrigals and motets, almost all published between 1603 and 1606 (a notable exception is the anthology La Gloria musicale, printed in 1592).
Of the contents, all very rare, seven partbooks are unique: canzoni by Lorenzo Medici, madrigals by Benedetto Pallavicino, Marc’Antonio Ingegneri and Francesco Terriera; motets by Simone Molinaro; masses by Giovanni Croce and Laude spirituali by Bartolomeo Favretti. Of these seven, the Canto of Favretti’s Laudecompletes three other parts held in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome, while theCanzoni of Medici, the Sesto libro de madrigali by Ingegneri, the Secondo libro de madrigali by Terriera, and the Primo libro de motetti a cinque by Molinaro comprise the single surviving source for any edition of those publications. The Biblioteca Berenson’s collection of unique sources of Italian printed music has now reached a total of fourteen items.
We acquired this volume in the auction held by Sotheby’s Paris of the extraordinary collection of bibliophile Andrè Meyer (1884-1974), who devoted his entire life to collecting music. Assembled during the first half of the 20th century, Meyer’s collection is considered to have been one of the most important European collections of music in private hands, and its sale at Sotheby’s Paris was a major event. Bidding for our volume by telephone, with lively competition in the hall, was a never to be forgotten experience!