This collection originated with the German musicologist Oskar Fleischer (1856–1933), who compiled these samples of music notation in the course of his research on the development of medieval music notation systems. Most of the items in the collection are individual manuscript leaves that were extracted from larger works, and some items are accompanied by handwritten descriptive notes in German (in Fleischer’s hand). Sibley Music Library purchased this collection at the June 1929 auction of Werner Wolffheim’s extensive private library of music manuscripts and treatises; Wolffheim had studied musicology with Fleischer at the University of Berlin. The collection contains manuscripts that represent diverse styles of music notation from ca. 1000-1600 and, as such, is an outstanding teaching tool for the study of the history of music notation.
