The Squarcialupi Codex

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he Squarcialupi Codex is the most vast and refined of all manuscript anthologies of the Italian music copied in Florence during the first twenty years of the fifteenth century. The over 300 pieces it contains - almost half of which are only available in this manuscript - are the work of nearly all of the most renowned composers of the fourteenth century, from the generation active during the first half of the century to those still active during the first decades of the fifteenth century.

The codex is richly illuminated in gold and precious colours which place it among the most magnificent works in the history of Italian illumination. Recent iconographic research confirms that the miniatures and splendid illuminations had their origins in the Florentine scriptorium of Santa Maria degli Angeli between 1410 and 1415. At one time the codex was a possession of the celebrated Florentine organist Antonio Squarcialupi (1417 - 1480), as is stated by the inscription on the first sheet: "This book belongs to Antonio di Bartolomeo Squarcialupi, organist in Santa Maria del Fiore". Later it was owned by Giuliano de’ Medici and subsequently passed to the Palatine Library; at the end of the eighteenth century it was transferred together with other volumes to the Laurentian Library where it is preserved to this day, marked Palatino 87, and still has its same elegant brown leather binding on wooden boards dating from the end of the fifteenth century.

In this edition, the codex is accompanied by a text volume (translated into English) edited by F. Alberto Gallo.

A box (size 320 x 460 mm), with leather covered spine with gold stamping, contains the codex and a text volume of 290 pages printed on handmade paper and bound in Fabriano paper.

The Facsimile is limited to 998 numbered copies world-wide.

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