Donors
Of the collection of 18 manuscript choir books, eleven books were conserved in 2014-15 in collaboration with Save Venice Inc. with partial funding from Beatrice and José Esteve and the Pro Venezia Svizzera Committee, in the UNESCO-Association of Private Committees for the Safeguarding of Venice program. In 2015, the British committee Venice in Peril funded the conservation of the remaining seven volumes.
History
Currently housed in the Archivio Patriarcale di Venezia, these large manuscripts containing illuminated musical scores were used in the Basilica di San Marco, the ducal chapel of Venice, during religious functions. They were produced during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and provide invaluable insight into the repertoire employed during contemporary liturgical celebrations at San Marco.
The restoration of these important volumes has also influenced new scholarship, and they will be featured in the upcoming publication The Sound of Eternity by Luigi Collarile. In collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, and the Procuratoria di San Marco, Venice, a digital catalogue will be prepared and published on a new online scientific platform, Venetian Music Online. The music inventory of the ducal chapel will be made available in the Historical Music Inventories 1500-1800 database, published by RISM Switzerland in collaboration with the University of Fribourg thanks to financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
These manuscripts are also available for consultation at the Archivio Storico del Patriarcato di Venezia.
Illuminated Choir Book from the Basilica di San Marco, Archivio Patriarcale
Conservation
The choir books were restored by conservator Lilia Gianotti, with the guidance of the Soprintendenza Beni Librari del Veneto.
For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.
For Further Reading
Collarile, Luigi. The Sound of Eternity. Investigating the Choir Books of the Ducal Chapel of St Mark’s, Venice (forthcoming).