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General resources for music manuscripts
- DIAMM: Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
- Database for inventories, descriptive information and images (or links to online images) of many Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts
- Includes the Census Catalogue and RISM (see below) entries for many sources
- Includes music manuscripts of polyphonic music up to c. 1550, as well as English music manuscripts for 1550-1600
- One of the most important online catalogues for music manuscripts
- Hamm, Charles, and Herbert Kellman, eds. Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music, 1400-1550. 5 vols. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: Hänssler-Verlag, 1979-1988. (CC)
- ML136 I545 1979
- Authors included entries for known manuscript sources of polyphonic music in mensural notation 1400–1550
- Includes bibliography of scholarly articles for each source with a list of composers, genres, and numbers of pieces; bibliography includes articles containing complete inventories
- System of manuscript abbreviations is widely used (with RISM, they are the two main standards for music manuscripts)
- Many of the entries can be found on DIAMM
- Microfilms of Renaissance Manuscripts
- List of microfilms available at McGill for specific Renaissance manuscripts
- Organized based on the CC (Census Catalogue)
- See CC under Manuscript Resources of this guide for more details
- Hamm, Charles, and Jerry Call. "Sources, MS; IX, Renaissance Polyphony." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, 2001.
- ML100 G8863 2001 (print copy of The New Grove Dictionary of Music)
- Annotated bibliographies for selected sources
- Discussion of sources based on date, region, and genre
- Notes on dating and provenance, analysis of fascicle structure, problems of paleography and notation, and relationships between groups of sources
- Updated notes on the Census Catalogue (CC) sources; useful for pairing with CC
- RISM B IV, 5. Bridgman, Nanie, ed. Manuscrits de Musique Polyphonique, XVe et XVIe siècles: Italie. Munich: Henle, 1991.
- ML113 I6 v. B IV, 5
- Descriptions and inventories, with codified incipits (beginning of each piece) of polyphonic music manuscripts of the 15th and 16th Centuries found in Italian libraries
- The system of manuscript abbreviations (“RISM sigla”) is widely used (with the Census Catalogue, it is one of the two main standards for music manuscripts)
- Contains index of incipits (beginnings of pieces) using numerical code
- IDEM: Integrated Database for Early Music
- Focuses on manuscripts of music from the Low Countries up to 1800
- Includes images and inventories of music manuscripts
