♦ MUSINSKY RARE BOOKS ♦ E-Catalogue 14 Printed books, manuscripts, bindings and portfolios 1470-1833 .. www.musinskyrarebooks.com + 1 212 579-2099
[email protected] Keeping tunes 1) BELASYSE, Mary, née CROMWELL, Countess FAUCONBERG (ca. 1637-1713). A manuscript songbook owned by the daughter of Oliver Cromwell. [France? ca. 1690-1700]. Oblong 8vo (91 x 151 mm). [95] leaves. Ruled throughout with four five-line staves, fols. 88r, 89r, and last 3 leaves otherwise blank, all other pages filled with musical melodies and texts of songs and airs in French, Italian and English, the notes and text in four contemporary cursive hands in black and brown inks, some with accompanying bass. Occasional blottings, crossings-out, and marginal additions. Watermark: clock (cadran): Heawood 340 or 341. Modern pencil foliation. A flyleaf at front evidently torn out, but the manuscript appears complete. Some minor soiling and staining, text of a few leaves slightly shaved. Late 17th-century red gold-tooled goatskin, covers with two triple-fillet panels, inner panel with fleurons at corners, spine in four gold-tooled compartments, the lowermost compartment with the gold-stamped initials “MB,” edges formerly gilt (faded), marbled endpapers; joints cracked, corners bumped and abraded. Provenance: Mary Cromwell Belasyse (ca. 1637-1713), signed “Mary Belasyse” on front flyleaf, her initials on binding; modern manuscript description in French tipped to front free endpaper; Cornelius J. Hauck, bookplate. $8500 A varied, cosmopolitan songbook for personal use, intermixing popular songs, religious music and arias from operas by Jean-Baptiste Lully, OWNED BY AND BOUND FOR OLIVER CROMWELL’S DAUGHTER. Like many early modern manuscript songbooks, this one resembles a musical scrapbook; it was an ongoing, collaborative creation, to which various (probably female) music-lovers added pieces over time.