A tiny fragment with musical notation from Purkersdorf, near Vienna. While the majority of the music on the back consists of fragments from a yet unidentified bassus voice (with the word “bassus” clearly written under the incipit), the top two lines of music on the front shows fragments of cantus and tenor lines as well as a cantus firmus. The maxima notes of the cantus firmus can easily be identified as the second half (“la-sol-la-mi”) of the motif from the famous (“instrumental”) motet “la-mi-la-sol” by Heinrich Isaac. It is here followed by a rest, the longa “la” and a custos “mi” which would place the surviving c.f.-fragment in the middle of the tenor line of the motet’s prima pars. The end of the line directly above turns out to be the end of the cantus line of the same part. Since the tenor voice of the prima pars takes up only little space it would have ended in the middle of the next line, which is now lost. The cantus voice would have taken up about three more lines of music above the surviving line, which would make the surviving fragment the lower half of a page. Since the normal layout would call for the two missing contratenors to be placed on the facing page of an opening, the current “front” of the fragment would most likely have been the original verso side of a folio. This would also nicely fit with the placement of contratenor bassus voices on the “back”, which would have been placed on an original recto side.

mensural.

4 fragmentary lines on its “front” and 5 fragmentary lines on its “back”