Introduction

Lost&Found is a R&D project that deals with Medieval and early modern fragmentary sources of music. It is currently run in CESEM – Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music at Lisbon NOVA University, and is funded by the Government of Portugal through the FCT – Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology. The project develops across two lines of research: 1) Medieval musical-liturgical fragments, which can be seen on PEM by selecting "PTDC/ART-PER/0902/2020" in the search filter "Project ID" on the "Sources" page, and 2) incomplete sources of polyphony.

The research line of Lost&Found devoted to polyphony specifically focuses on the works attributed or attributable to Francisco de Santa Maria surviving in manuscript choirbooks and partbooks from the Augustinian Canon Regulars Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, Portugal, which are now part of the collection of the University of Coimbra General Library (P-Cug). This corpus can be regarded as exemplary of local composition of polyphonic music in the 1560s and 1570s.

Francisco de Santa Maria was a Spaniard, born in the vicinity of Ciudad Rodrigo, on an unknown date, but probably in the mid 1530s. He was the illegitimate son of Pedro Moro and Isabel Sánchez and his baptismal name was Francisco Moro (or Mouro, in Portuguese, as it appears in P-Cug MM 34, fol. 37v). He is documented in the Cathedral of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1553 as a choirboy (or, most likely, a young singer, given his presumed age at the time) with permission to study Arts, when Diego Buxel (also Bujel, Bruxel, and Bruxelas, d. after 1572), presumably his teacher, was a chapelmaster there. Shortly afterwards he moved to Portugal, where he served as chapelmaster, first to the Bishop of Guarda, João de Portugal (1556-85), and then to the Bishop of Coimbra, João Soares (1545-72). Being already a priest, he took the habit in the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra on 17 March 1562, professing one year later, on 19 March 1563, to become an Augustinian Canon Regular. After more than thirty years as a chapelmaster in Santa Cruz, he died there on 13 February 1597. Besides sacred music, Francisco de Santa Maria also composed choruses for a number of Jesuit neo-Latin theatre plays, namely Achabus by Miguel Venegas, staged at the College of Arts in Coimbra in 1562, and Sedecias by Venegas’ pupil Luís da Cruz, staged at the same College in 1570 before the young King Sebastião, who would die in 1578, aged 24, in the battle of Ksar el-Kebir in north-western Morocco.

The works of Francisco de Santa Maria are found in choirbooks P-Cug MM 3 and MM 31 (the main layer of the first and the entirety of the latter probably copied by his own hand), MM 9, MM 33, MM 34 (most likely copied for use of the Bishop’s private cappella), MM 44, MM 51, and MM 53, and partbooks MM 70 (a superius book from a set of presumably five), MM 230, MM 231, and MM 161 (with new shelfmarks: MM 231, MM 231 A, and MM 231 B, the superius, altus, and tenor books, respectively, from a set of four). Most of these sources can be found in full colour reproduction with descriptions and inventories of their contents on PEM.

Only a handful of pieces are explicitly attributed to Francisco de Santa Maria, but his authorship of most, if not all, of the contents of the main layer of MM 3 (including five Masses and three Lamentations) may be hypothesised on the basis of close analysis. This is also the case of some, if not all, the music in MM 31 (five psalms, two Magnificat settings, and one responsory pro defunctis), and of the two incomplete sets of partbooks MM 70 and MM 230+MM 231+MM 161, the second of which we intend to reconstruct.

Works with declared authorship attribution are the following:

- Missa O beata Maria, P-Cug MM 3, fols. 24v-34r, “D. Franciscus”.

- Introit and Kyrie from a Missa pro defunctis, P-Cug MM 34, fols. 37v-38r, “fr^co mouro”.

- Alleluia, mode 8, P-Cug MM 9, fols. 142v-143r, “De dom Frãcisco.”; superius also in P-Cug MM 70, fol. 79v.

- Ex hoc nunc, psalm-tone fabordão, tone 8, P-Cug MM 44, ff. 154v-155r, “A. D. F. c. s. +.” (= Auctore Dom Franciscus Canonicus Sanctae Crucis); also in P-Cug MM 33, fol. [127]v.

- Et omnis mansuetudinis (Memento Domine, tone 2), P-Cug MM 44, fols. 66v-70r, “D. Frãciscus C. S crucis”.

- In tribulatione dilatasti mihi (Cum invocarem, tone 8), P-Cug MM 44, fols. 71v-74r, “D. Francisc⁹. c. s. crucis”.

- In manus tuas (a2), P-Cug MM 44, fols. 84v-85r, “D. F. C. S. +.”

- Benedicamus Domino, P-Cug MM 44, fols. 120v-121r, “D. franciscus c. s. crucis”.

- Benedicamus Domino, P-Cug MM 44, fols. 132v-133r, “D. Franciscus C. S. +.”

- Exultemus et laetemur, P-Cug MM 53, fols. 45v-46r, “D. fr^co c ^.s. +”; also in P-Cug MM 51, fols. 1r-2r.

- Textless [Jesu redemptor], P-Cug MM 53, fol. 134v, “D. fr^co”.

- Divinis habeas, chorus, P-Cug MM 70, fols. 86r-87r, “D. f.” (superius only).

- Quae est spes nostra, P-Cug MM 70, fol. 102r, “D. franciscus” (superius only).

- In Deo laudabimur, P-Cug MM 70, fol. 108r, “D. f.” (altus primus only).