The ''Ivrea Codex'' (''Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, 115'') is a

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced ...

containing a significant body of 14th century French

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

music. The codex contains

motets In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different element ...

movements, and a handful of

virelai A ''virelai'' is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three '' formes fixes'' (the others were the ballade and the rondeau) and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the la ...

s, chaces, and

ballade Ballad is a form of narrative poetry, often put to music, or a type of sentimental love song in modern popular music. Ballad or Ballade may also refer to: Music Genres and forms * Ballade (classical music), a musical setting of a literary ballad ...

s, composed in the middle of the 14th century. The

notation In linguistics and semiotics, a notation is a system of graphics or symbols, characters and abbreviated expressions, used (for example) in artistic and scientific disciplines to represent technical facts and quantities by convention. Therefore, ...

is characteristic of the Ars Nova period. The manuscript is missing at least one gathering of Mass movements. The provenance of the codex is disputed. It was long thought to have been compiled in

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of Southeastern France. Located on the left bank of the river Rhône, the commune ha ...

, the seat of the French Papacy, around 1370. However, the musically important court of Gaston Fébus has also been suggested. Most recently, however, Karl Kügle has asserted that the source was made in

Ivrea Ivrea (; pms, Ivrèja ; ; lat, Eporedia) is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Situated on the road leading to the Aosta Valley (part of the medieval Via Francigena), it stradd ...

itself, by musicians connected to the

Savoy Savoy (; frp, Savouè ; french: Savoie ) is a cultural-historical region in the Western Alps. Situated on the cultural boundary between Occitania and Piedmont, the area extends from Lake Geneva in the north to the Dauphiné in the south. ...

ard court (possibly Jehan Pellicier), in the 1380s or 1390s. None of these three interpretations has become universally accepted. All of the music in the codex is anonymous, but attributions have been made on the basis of concordances to

Philippe de Vitry Philippe de Vitry (31 October 1291 – 9 June 1361) was a French composer-poet, bishop and music theorist in the style of late medieval music. An accomplished, innovative, and influential composer, he was widely acknowledged as a leading mu ...

Guillaume de Machaut Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to ...

, Magister Heinricus, Bararipton, Depansis,

Matheus de Sancto Johanne Matheus de Sancto Johanne (died after 10 June 1391), also known as Mayshuet, was a French composer of the late Medieval era. Active both in France and England, he was one of the representatives of the complex, manneristic musical style known as ...

, Orles, Sortes, and Loys. One piece attributed to Chipre is probably of

Cypriot Cypriot (in older sources often "Cypriote") refers to someone or something of, from, or related to the country of Cyprus. * Cypriot people, or of Cypriot descent; this includes: ** Armenian Cypriots ** Greek Cypriots ** Maronite Cypriots ** Tur ...

provenance. Kügle notes that ''

ars subtilior ''Ars subtilior'' ( Latin for 'subtler art') is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered on Paris, Avignon in southern France, and also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century.Hoppin 1978, ...

''-style compositions are absent from the source;Kügle, ''op. cit.'', p. 552. however, sources without ''ars subtilior'' compositions far outnumber those containing these pieces, so it is hard to read particular significance into this statement.

References and further reading

Medieval music manuscript sources Ars nova {{medieval-music-stub