Blog

From the collections of the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in Hradec Králové, a homogeneous group of five sheet-music codices that were created in the 16th century and at the beginning of the 17th century and belonged to the literati brotherhood at the choir of the church of the Holy Spirit in Hradec Králové (Hr 30–34) has been digitised. They contain records of individual voices of Latin polyphonic motets and songs or sacramental hymns.

A major part of the recently digitised manuscripts of the National Library of the Czech Republic are codices of the former Prague Lobkowicz Library. A homogeneous collection is formed by eleven volumes of historical works and excerpts (XXIII.C.5/1–11) from the property of Thomas Anton Putzlacher; many of which contain works by the historian Jan Florián Hammerschmidt. Further manuscripts of the Lobkowicz collection come from the library of the Premonstratensian monastery in Weissenau and were written in the 12th–15th centuries. Six other manuscripts, written in German, contain also the three-volume chronicle of the Benedictine Emmaus Monastery, capturing the period of 1877–1930 (XVI.A.81–XVI.A.83). Another six manuscripts come from the 15th century and, with the exception of the Latin Historia destructionis Troiae by Guido de Columnis (VIII.B.17), these are exegeses of the Bible, mainly of the Book of Psalms.

The digitisation of the collections of the Music Department of the National Library of the CR continued with four printed books; some of the codices were complemented by handwritten additions. Two of the books made accessible are binder’s volumes of voice books of vocal polyphony coming from the 16th century and printed in Germany and Switzerland; the Czech hymnal from 1727 was printed in the Old Town of Prague; and the last printed book was made in London in 1781.

Two alba amicorum in the collections of the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec were digitised: the album of Philippe Casimir Le Pieque (Inv. No. ST 307) comprises inscriptions from 1756–1762, made in various parts of Germany; 14 of them are accompanied by illustrations. The inscriptions in the album of Johann August Werlisch (Inv. No. ST 302) come from Nuremberg and Leipzig from 1774–1776 and two of them are decorated.