Martina Šárovcová

Rébus Unhošťského rorátníku. K provenienci, objednavatelům a dataci iluminovaného hudebního pramene z počátku 17. století

The Unhošť Manuscript of Rorate Chants (in Czech a rorátník is a collection of chants for morning liturgies during Advent) is traditionally associated with the Unhošť literary brotherhood singers in conformity with its believed provenience. However, except for some marginal references to it or its inclusion in lists of works, the manuscript has never been published in any scholarly literature. From a detailed analysis of the manuscript and a prosopographic investigation it is possible to establish the manuscript's provenience, more precisely establish its date of origin, determine who commissioned it - the individual depicted in the rebus - and what the illuminator painted. From an analysis of a commemorative record from 1653 and the identification of the portrayed individuals who commissioned the work (the bakers Jiří Vokoun Sr. of Vokounštejn and Matyáš Chrudimský) the Unhošt rorátník is found to be from an as yet unknown musical source, which was created for the use of the literary brotherhood at the Church of St Stephen in Prague's Old Town. The rorátník was donated in 1653 by the doctor Jakub Jan Václav Dobřenský of Nigropont to the Unhošt parish. Based on the identification of the illuminator and a partially preserved inscribed year the manuscript can be dated as having originated after 1603 but no later than 1609. The decorations on the rorátník were painted by the Old Town painter Simeon Ledecký, whose monogram, SL, is on the three illuminations. The illuminations in the Unhošť rorátník are his only known and surviving work. This identification is of significance, as biographical dictionaries published to date have no information on the specific works of some painters unless they appeared in connection with excerpts from guild disputes or financial ledgers.

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