The Use and Re-Use of Music in Early Printed Books

All the commerce I have in this world, is, that I borrow the instruments of their writing, as more speedy, and more easie: in requital whereof I may peradventure hinder the melting of some piece of butter in the market.

– Michel de Montaigne in “Du démentir” 

                                                         (Translated by John Florio in The Essays, 1603).

Early modern writers, like Montaigne, were self-consciously aware that their published works could one day become waste paper, re-purposed for any number of uses, such as wrapping food in the market. This exhibition, The Use and Re-Use of Music in Early Printed Books, looks at how sheet music has been repurposed as covers for early printed works as a convenient and cost-effective alternative to leather bindings. The re-use of discarded parchment increased during the Reformation when religious practices were undergoing significant changes, including what was considered to be acceptable music. As a result of these shifts, older texts became outdated and could be acquired cheaply in the second-hand book market to be disassembled and re-used by economical bookbinders. The animal skin on which many medieval books were written was both durable and easily repurposed, and because many of these books (especially choirbooks) were deemed unimportant or obsolete, their pages were used in the production of new books. Here we showcase some items from the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies’ rare-book collection which make use of these discarded choirbooks in their bindings. This exhibition displays the re-use of sheet music that have been either written by hand or printed on animal skin and asks us to consider how one book may be preserved by physically becoming a part of another.

Curated by Dustin Meyer with the assistance of Taylor Tryburski and Elisa Tersigni