Franco Pavan
(…The Libro Terzo d’Intavolatura di Chitarrone con sue tavole per suonare sopra la parte by Johannes Hieronimus Kapsperger has now once again reached a safe harbor, after a long and solitary voyage. It’s a story that we know only in part, and which we will attempt to recount here. The only known copy of this volume is preserved in the Yale University Music Library with the call number Rare M142 C54 K17 + bk.3. It was purchased at Sotheby’s (London) by the American institution on 7 December 2001, paid for by the Carl S. Miller Fund. The engraved (chalcographic) edition is in-folio and is missing two sheets (pages 3-6). As to the provenance of the volume, the auction house merely indicates a succinct “various owners”. We will return to this sale later, but first we must follow the tracks which this edition – though perhaps not this exact copy – left on the sandy beaches and rocky shores of human hands…)
The Memory of Paper. An Incomplete History of the Libro Terzo d’Intavolatura di Chitarone by Gio. Girolamo Kapsperger
