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'Towards a Restoration of Tinctoris' L'homme armé mass: Coherence, Mensuration, Varietas'

The aim of the first part of the article is to critique the unique manuscript source (Vatican City, Cappella Sistina, MS 35) of the most impressive musical composition of the most important music theorist of the late fifteenth century, showing that it was copied from a defective source and that parts supplied to fill major gaps did not have the authority of the composer. Through a close investigation of mensural usage and other structural features, many details of what Tinctoris’s original music must have been like are suggested, arising from patterns established in the unquestioned portions of the music. The mass further sheds light on the significance of Tinctoris’s theoretical writings (and vice versa); both his proportional doctrine and his rhetorical notion of varietas are considered. The research is founded upon Dean’s intensive ongoing study of the early Cappella Sistina manuscripts in the Vatican Library (begun over thirty years ago), and offers new insights into theoretical material that has been widely studied, but only partially understood.

The article forms part of a special issue of the Journal of the Alamire Foundation devoted to Johannes Tinctoris, guest-edited by Woodley (q.v.). This issue of the journal emerged directly, by invitation, from the 2011 Tinctoris quincentenary celebration sessions at the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference in Barcelona.