Kutna Hora music manuscripts

Kutna Hora's Musical Manuscripts of 15. and 16. Centuries

Kutna Hora’s Antiphonary

This source is deposited in the National Library of the Czech Republic in Prague. It is richly illuminated. It originated in the prominent Prague’s workshop of the illuminator Valentin Noha of Jindřichův Hradec and was completed in 1471. However, it is not a work of one individual, at least three different illuminators and two scribes participated in its creation [21]. The knowledge of life and institutions of mining environment is an evidence for a close connection of the authors to Kutná Hora.

It counts among outstanding relics of Czech book painting. In this regard it is referred to in a number of publications [18,19] [21]. By the level of its artwork it can be measured with the prominent European manuscripts of that time. The picture on the title page is an interesting evidence of mining techniques and ore processing in Kutná Hora (like illuminations in other sources)

The volume contains one-voice latin chants in rhombic choral notation

The ownership of the source might be hinted in some historical accounts: Literary brotherhood of some church ( Tall?) supposedly owned a richly illuminated gradual as early as 1471 [21]. It may have been this very document.