I ran across the following polyphonic fragment hiding in the Heidelberg University Library's collection of digitized incunabula:
These fragments were recovered from (and are preserved together with) a 1482 incunabulum of Pseudo-Thomas Aquinas – De arte praedicandi, a volume which had originally belonged to the Benedictine cloister of Schuttern (today incorporated into Friesenheim – not far from Strasbourg where the host volume was printed/published). The volume was given to the university library in 1806. Among the various repurposed manuscript fragments removed from the volume's binding during a contemporary conservation are two paper fragments (formerly front paste-downs, according to the volume's bibliographical information) which preserve parts of (two?) Latin-texted polyphonic compositions notated on 5-line black staves in void black mensural notation (with a few full notes used both for semiminims and sesquialtera at the breve-level). They are from the same original leaf; the recto of the taller fragment corresponds to the same side of the leaf as the verso of the shorter one, and vice-versa. I am attaching a modified image (based on the source images © Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg) which associates and aligns the two sides correctly (The pair on the left is the original recto – preserving the right-hand margin of the leaf – and the pair on the right the original verso).
I have not yet spent much effort trying to identify them (the one labeled Tenor starts "O dulcis") [see comments, below, for identification after my initial post], though I am guessing they are late 15th c. to early 16th c. from the mid 15th century [thanks to both Bob Mitchell and Ralph Corrigan for the correction]. They could possibly be slightly earlier if they were part of the original binding and the volume was bound not long after printing. Feel free to correct me if any of this seems inaccurate. The notation uses clear but fairly informal writing – for example, clefs were not entered at the start of every stave.
From what I can decipher of the texts (troped Salve Regina, as pointed out by Bob Mitchell in the comments, below), they read:
(left pair, original recto): … ecclesie eterne por[ta] … nobis refugium.
(right pair, original verso): O [clemens] / O [pia] … [na]to, crucifixo … nobis flagella[to] … O [dulcis] Maria. | O dulcis Tenor.
Entry on DIAMM with updated information.
[original post and image edited slightly for the sake of clarity/accuracy -Rd]
-Richard
Replies
In line with Bob Mitchell's comment, this looks more mid-1400s than late...
Dunstable edn no. 63... Salve Regina with trope...Superius part
since the photo contains pieces of the same voice part stretched across the portions preserved there must logically be something on the reverse side of this 'page'. Where is it?
I updated my original posting with an improved image that makes the relationship of the fragments clearer. There are two fragments, recto and verso of each is shown in the composite image.