University of Warsaw Library, SDM 8–36 (PL-Wu SDM 8–36) is a set of partbooks comprising five collections of Italian madrigals published at the Phalèse Antwerp workshop in the 1590s. The partbooks are still in their original bindings, dated 1601. Furthermore, the front pastedown of each partbook carries a note of possession, which enables to identify the early owners of the volumes and link them to early modern Frankfurt an der Oder. By analysing these and other material features of the partbooks, this paper will reconstruct their context of use and suggest a symbolic function beyond the practical purpose of enabling performance.

Antonio Chemotti is assistant professor at KU Leuven (in association with the Alamire Foundation) and research associate at KBR – Royal Library of Belgium in the context of the programme “From Script to Sound”. His research interests include music in late medieval and early modern Europe, source studies and text criticism, music and death, and music and emotion.