Western Medieval Manuscripts : Greek texts on music

Western Medieval Manuscripts

The manuscript, written in the first half of the 16th century, contains three Greek texts on music: the Introduction to Harmonics by Cleonides (2nd c. CE), Sectio canonis (Division of the Scale) and a small series of excerpts attributed to Ptolemy (130-175 CE). Only the first text is provided with a title and name of the author. The present sequence of the leaves does not correspond to the correct arrangement of the texts: f. 16 seems to have been misplaced. After the Introduction to Harmonics, the Division of the Scale begins at f. 8r with no rubrics and a sort of title written in the margin; the only element indicating its beginning is an initial in ekthesis. At f. 11v the text is abruptly interrupted by the third text, the excerpts from Ptolemy, beginning incomplete at f. 12r. The excerpts continue until f. 15v, where the ending is underlined by the cul-de-lampe disposition of the text. On f. 16r-v the text of the Division of the Scale continues from the passage concluding on f. 11v. Folios 11 and 16 form a bifolium: maybe they were originally intended to be placed after f. 10, ff. 10-11-16. Folios 12-15 form two bifolia: probably they were originally intended to follow f. 16. Since the text starting on f. 12 is defective, at least one folio preceding it must have been lost. A later hand (hand B) has made annotations in order to indicate the correct succession of the texts. He supplied the first missing words of the excerpts from Ptolemy at <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(29);return false;'>f. 12r</a> and the first word of the continuation of the Division of the scale in the lower margin of <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(28);return false;'>f. 11v</a>, to be found at <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(37);return false;'>f. 16r</a>. The misplacement of leaves must have occurred on a relatively early stage of the manuscript's history, since MS <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10722506g'> Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, gr. 3027</a>, of the 16th-17th c., show the same incorrect arrangement of the texts found in MS CUL Gg.2.34 (MS CUL Gg.2.34 seems to have been the exemplar for sections 3-5 of the Paris manuscript, see Mathiesen 1988, p. 296).Before receiving a new binding in 1964, the manuscript was bound together with the English manuscript CUL Gg.2.35.