Blough-Weis Library: Music of the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Eras (Music 245): Digital Manuscript Collections

Starting Points: Databases & Guides

DIAMM : Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music This link opens in a new window
DIAMM (the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music) is a leading resource for the study of medieval manuscripts. We present images and metadata for thousands of manuscripts on this website. We also provide a home for scholarly resources and editions, undertake digital restoration of damaged manuscripts and documents, publish high-quality facsimiles, and offer our expertise as consultants.

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RISM This link opens in a new window
RISM is recognized within the music world as the central place for the documentation of music primary sources. The RISM publications are divided into the following series: Series A: Inventories alphabetically by composer Series B: Bibliographies of materials organized by topic Series C: Directories of music research libraries. Beyond these series, country groups manage projects that document extant libretti in their countries.

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Production and Reading of Music Sources (PRoMS)
This project, from several UK institutions, aims to create a page-by-page description of manuscripts and printed books containing polyphonic music, 1480 - 1530. It links to digitized copies where available, but also includes detailed information on materials which have not been scanned. Can be invaluable for understanding the appearance and content of manuscripts not available online.
Digitized Medieval Manuscripts App
This app, organized by location, identifies and links to libraries and other locations which have scanned copies of their medieval manuscripts online. A volunteer project aimed at history researchers, it's not comprehensive, but can be a useful tool for accessing digital-resources pages for included locations.

Europeana Collections
The Europeana website aggregates search results from numerous digitization projects at libraries, museums, and archives across Europe, with links to the digitized copies of early printed books, manuscripts, scores, and recordings.

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The Europeana website has several collections which limit the type of materials searched, including one focused on Music. Use this option to narrow your search results as needed.
Hathi Trust
HathiTrust is a repository of digitized books and other materials contributed by libraries from around the world; those materials no longer under copyright (published before 1924, in most cases) can be viewed in full.
Internet Archive: Books
Internet Archive describes itself as a "non-profit digital library offering millions of free books, movies, & audio files, plus billions of saved web pages in the Wayback Machine."

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This link has been customized to take you to a search page that includes only books which are freely available in their entirety.

International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) This link opens in a new window
IMSLP pulls together over 200,000 scores freely available online, ranging from scans of medieval manuscripts to newly-typeset versions by users. While its breadth of coverage is unmatched, the quality is patchier. Recommended principally for when you've exhausted all other options.

France

BnF Gallica
Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Germany

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
This massive digital collections includes over 2.7 millions volumes from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, as well as from the regional State Libraries of Augsburg, Bamberg, Regensburg and Passau.

Italy

DigiVatLib: Vatican Library Digital Collections
Home page for manuscript and early printed collections digitized by the Vatican Library.

Spain

Biblioteca Digital Hispánica
The digitized holdings of the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

Switzerland

e-codices: Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland
This site collects manuscripts scanned by libraries and archives across Switzerland, and even includes "reconstituted" collections digitally pieced together from originals scattered in multiple locations.
e-manuscripta: Manuscript Material from Swiss Libraries
Closely related to e-codices, this project collects digitized copies of manuscript documents held in Swiss Libraries. Although the focus is on individual items - such as letters - there is some overlap with manuscript codices, so it's worth checking here if e-codices doesn't have what you're looking for.

United Kingdom

British Library Digitised Manuscripts
This site provides access to digital copies of manuscripts, archival materials, and early printed works from the holdings of the British Library.
Early Music Online
This collection is a subset of the British Library collection, and consists of 327 volumes of sixteenth-century music.
Parker Library On the Web
Almost all of the manuscripts held by the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, have been digitized and made available through this site run by Stanford University; includes extensive descriptions and bibliographies for each manuscript.