Add MS 29987
| Add MS 29987 | |
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| British Library | |
Facsimile of f. 62v of the manuscript, showing the Trotto and part of a saltarello
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| Also known as | London BM Add. 29987 |
| Date | c. 1400 |
| Place of origin | Tuscany or possibly Umbria |
| Language(s) | Tuscan |
| Material | parchment |
| Size | 26 × 19.5 cm |
| Format | quarto |
| Contents | vocal and instrumental music |
| Previously kept |
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London, British Library, MS. Add. 29987 is a medieval Tuscan musical manuscript dating from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. It contains a number of polyphonic Italian Trecento madrigals, ballate, sacred Mass movements, and motets, and fifteen untexted monophonic instrumental dances which are among the earliest purely instrumental pieces in the Western musical tradition. The manuscript apparently belonged to the de' Medici family in the fifteenth century, and by 1670 to Carlo di Tommaso Strozzi; it was in the British Museum from 1876, where it was catalogued as item 29987 of the Additional manuscripts series. It is now in the British Library.
The manuscript measures approximately 26 × 19.5 cm, and consists of 88 parchment leaves in 11 quaternio gatherings. There are six flyleaves at the front, one from 1957, three from 1876 and two from the seventeenth century, of which the first has a list in the hand of Carlo di Tommaso Strozzi of the composers represented; two flyleaves at the back date from 1876 and 1957. The binding in half leather is from 1957, over older thick wooden boards. The first folio has the arms of the de' Medici family in red, gold, blue and green; the arms are in the "augmented" form, with the arms of France in the upper central ball, granted by Louis XI in 1465.
Add 29987 is a part of a larger manuscript of at least 185 pages, as the surviving leaves were originally numbered 98–185. The pages are ruled with eight five-line staves in red, and the music is written in full (black) mensural notation, with only occasional use of void ("white") notes and red colouration. It is carelessly written in one principal and several other scribal hands; the musical text is corrupted in many places by a later hand which altered the rhythms and added inappropriate rests.
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