Panel session of the ‘Momentum’ Digital Music Fragmentology Research Group at the Hungarian Science Festival

Presentations of the session:

• Zsuzsa Czagány: Music based fragment research at the service of medieval studies
• Gabriella Gilányi. Musical fragments and notations. Transylvania in the light of recent music palaeographical research
• Gábriel Szoliva: The dismembered second volume of the 13th-century notated breviary from Esztergom

The relationship between the Part and the Whole in the case of medieval manuscript fragments is apparently clear. Each fragment once belonged to a complete codex, and what else could be the main goal of fragmentological research than to reconstruct this whole as completely as possible? This is indeed the case, but we must also take into account another aspect: the fragments of medieval codex fragments are not, for the most part, preserved in isolation. Of course, there are also examples of fragments of a codex being found as a single unit, but this is less common. Much more often they are found in their secondary function: as bindings to cover a book or archival document, as covers to protect and reinforce a binding board or spine, as flyleaves, cut and sized into smaller or larger pieces, cut into strips, glued crosswise and lengthwise, according to the shape/size of the book to be bound and the practice and working methods of the bookbinder’s workshop. The fragment, taken out of its original environment, from its mother codex, thus comes into contact with another object at a later point in history forming together a new unit. In the scientific study of this new entity – a new, different Whole – other aspects of  research and other disciplines are involved. Their aim is no longer exclusively and not primarily to restore the original fragment, but rather – just as emphatically – to understand the history of the book or manuscript that contains the fragment, to explore the complexity of the new Whole.

The three speakers of the ‘Momentum’ Digital Music Fragmentology Research Group, which was formed a year ago, will talk about the results of the first year, their research experiences and their plans for the near future, starting from this theoretical basis.

The lectures can be followed live on the YouTube channel of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-ygXbWdhUY