Watermarks in selected seventeenth-century Spanish religious music manuscripts

Abstract

Papermaking and marks on paper identifying its maker have often proved helpful to musicologists in establishing the provenance and/or chronology for the copying of musical works. Many factors, however, complicate the usefulness of the available information about paper, not the least of which is the difficulty in obtaining complete information about paper, its maker and date of manufacture. Although the industry has been researched in some parts of Europe, little is known about the papers used by musicians and copyists in seventeenth-century Spain. This article considers the state of watermark research on Spanish papers and applies what is currently known to a number of watermarks found in seventeenth-century devotional and liturgical music preserved in archives in Valencia and San Lorenzo del Escorial.