YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

78 LUMINITA FLOREA
The Hague, 6 and by a consortium of American libraries including those at Columbia
University, the University of California at Berkeley, the San Francisco State University,
the New York Union Theological Seminary, the Huntington Library, and several
others. 7
All these provide access to manuscript sources in ways that were not even thinkable
a few years ago. They also prompt questions with regard to the need for – and
feasibility of – similar projects in the field of illustrations found in music theory
treatises. This article was prompted by the recognition of such a need. Searching the
medieval and Renaissance manuscripts available in digital form has turned out only
a few music theory works, whether whole or fragmentary. As a rule, these were digitized
only in part, by some institutions yet not by others, and preference was generally
given to examples of musical notation. The volumes of RISM published thus
far and devoted to music theory manuscripts do not always include detailed descriptions
of illustrations. 8 Yet the building of a large, searchable database or the writing
of a catalogue of illustrations in music theory treatises would create opportunities for
research into the transmission of drawings that would, as C. Matthew Balensuela has
suggested, parallel the tracing of loci paralleli in the editing of texts. 9
In what follows I will tentatively classify the illustrations in music theory
treatises into two broad categories or classes: simple and composite. Within these, or
alongside them, two others become apparent: geometrical schemes and images of
living things. Further classification of the composite category identifies some more
frequently encountered sub-categories (here arranged in ascending order of graphic
complexity); in the class of geometrical schemes: the ladder, the monochord, tables,
the shield, the triangle, circular and semicircular shapes, building frames; in the class
of living things: the vegetal reign, the human hand, the human body.
The domain of illustrations in music theory treatises is rich and diverse: a cursory
examination of tables only, in one single manuscript, 10 reveals those of concor-
6 See Middeleeuwse verluchte handschriften (henceforth: The Hague, Handschriften),
.
7 See Digital scriptorium, .
8 See the RISM volumes B/3/1–5, published between 1961-1997: J. SMITS VAN WAESBERGHE, The
Theory of Music from the Carolingian Era up to 1400, 1: Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts, (RISM
B/3/1), 1961; P. FISCHER, The Theory of Music from the Carolingian Era up to 1400, 2: Italy, (RISM
B/3/2), 1968; M. HUGLO and C. MEYER, The Theory of Music: Manuscripts from the Carolingian
Era up to c.1500 in the Federal Republic of Germany, (RISM B/3/3), Munich, 1986; C. MAYER,
M. HUGLO and N.C. PHILLIPS, The Theory of Music: Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to
c.1500 in Great Britain and in the United States of America: Descriptive Catalogue, (RISM B/3/4),
Munich, 1992 (henceforth: RISM B/3/4); C. MEYER, E. WITKOWSKA-ZAREMBA and K.W.
GÜMPEL, The Theory of Music: Manuscripts from the Carolingian Era up to c.1500 in the Czech
Republic, Poland, Portugal and Spain: Descriptive Catalogue, (RISM B/3/5), Munich, 1997.
9 See C.M. BALENSUELA, ‘Ut hec te figura docet’: The Transformation of Music Theory Illustrations
from Manuscripts to Print, paper presented for the 17th International Congress of the International
Musicological Society, Leuven, August 2002, and the corresponding article in this volume.
10 London, British Library, MS Add. 10336. For a description, see RISM B/3/4, pp. 35–38.