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Alamire
Foundation
IDEM
Integrated Database for Early music
IDEM – Integrated Database for Early Music

IDEM is an interdisciplinary and multifaceted database of manuscripts and printed books that are relevant to the Alamire Foundation's research and activities. It therefore especially focuses on the musical heritage of the Low Countries from the early Middle Ages until 1800.

IDEM contains digital images of manuscripts and prints digitized by the Alamire Digital Lab, the high-technology photography centre of the Alamire Foundation (KU Leuven – Musicology Research Unit). Its state-of-the-art equipment allows musical sources to be photographed following the strictest standards and quality requirements.

The core database is complemented by interrelated sub-databases that enable the consultation and study of manuscript and printed sources from multiple perspectives. IDEM will eventually contain information about every aspect of the manuscripts and books concerned, including their physical characteristics, their content and illumination, as well as recordings, editions and so-called 'fake-similes' (adapted versions of the original images, facilitating performance from the original notation).

IDEM is thus designed to be an online, freely accessible platform and tool for the preservation, study, and valorisation of the music heritage of the Low Countries.

March 2025 - In the spotlight: ÖNB, Ms. Cod. 9814

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the music calligrapher Petrus Alamire gained fame and recognition through his role in the production of beautifully illuminated manuscripts. We recognize his hand in numerous sources of polyphonic music that were made for or commissioned by the most prominent and influential figures at the Habsburg-Burgundian courts and beyond. Today, in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, we find a source that is somewhat out of place within the Alamire corpus. It is not a choirbook with lavish illuminations or carefully crafted initials, but a collection of 21 loose paper folios in the middle of a modern compilation of other manuscripts.

It is not entirely clear whether these pages were intended to be sung from or were rather used as an example to be copied from, as each voice was noted on a separate page. Given the dimensions, approximately A4 size, individual performance does not seem to pose any issues; several singers could even perform the same voice from this source. Park Collegium, the house ensemble of the Alamire Foundation, put it to the test a few years ago during a workshop in the House of Polyphony with Honey Meconi (US). The result? With some trial and error, it was determined that codex 9814 is certainly usable in performance situations.

The collection contains the anonymous chanson Plus oultre and five motets attributed to Agricola, Ghiselin, Mouton, La Rue, and Richafort. Alamire's own signature stands at the end of Ghiselin's Ave domina, which is quite unusual. Initially, the collection was linked to the wealthy Fugger family from Augsburg, whose collection of music manuscripts was quite extensive. However, the origins of this Alamire group may lie elsewhere: various details point to the imperial court. Not only was “Plus oultre” the motto of Charles V (from 1516 onwards, when he became king of Spain), the mottos of important relatives are also interwoven in the lyrics of the song: “Qui vouldra”, the motto of his father Philip the Fair, “Mesure tenir” (the French variant of “Halt mas”), that of his grandfather Maximilian I, and “Je l'ay empris” his great-grandfather Charles the Bold’s motto.

View the source:   Ms. Cod. 9814