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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.

May 2024 - In the spotlight: Ms. Capp. Sist. 160

Several manuscripts from the workshop of music copyist Petrus Alamire reached the prestigious papal chapel in Rome. To be precise, three manuscripts became part of the collections of Pope Leo X (born Giovanni de Medici) who reigned from 1513 to 1521. One of these was Capp. Sist. 160, a choirbook containing polyphonic mass settings which is now held in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. On the first opening of this codex, we see both the papal coat of arms adorned with the text “Papa Leo Xmus”, and Leo X himself depicted while praying. Presumably, Leo X received the manuscript not much later than his election as pope on 8 March 1513. It is not entirely clear who the patron or first owner of this manuscript was: throughout the choirbook we also find, among others, the arms of the Habsburg-Burgundian house and of Portugal and Hungary, spelt here in Flemish as ‘Poortegale’ and ‘Ongherie’.

Capp. Sist 160 opens with the Missa Virgo parens Christi by Jacobus Barbireau, who was attached to the Antwerp Cathedral. At the basis of his five-part mass lies a responsory for the Blessed Virgin. The beautiful miniature depicting the birth of Christ on the left page reinforces this theme. The work of other Franco-Flemish polyphonists such as Jacob Obrecht is also featured in this choirbook. In his Missa de Sancto Johanne Baptista– transmitted anonymously in this manuscript–Obrecht incorporates several antiphons recounting the life of John the Baptist, who was also the patron saint of both Pope Leo X and his native city, Florence.

View the source:   Ms. Capp. Sist. 160