Cancioneiro de Belém

The Cancioneiro Musical de Belém (English: Belém Musical Songbook) or simply Cancioneiro de Belém (Santa Maria de Belém, Lisbon, National Archaeology Museum, Ms 3391) is a Portuguese Renaissance manuscript from the beginning of the 17th century.

This little manuscript with just 18 songs was found in the archives of the National Archaeology Museum, in Belém (Lisbon), by the end of the 1960s by professors Arthur Lee-Francis Askins and Jack Sage, specialists in Iberian lyric of the 16th century. It was later studied by Manuel Morais, who published in 1988 a critical edition of the cancioneiro, together with a musical transcription to modern notation of all eighteen songs.

Currently with 77 folios sized 191 x 130 mm, the songs proper are found between folios 58v and 74. In recent times (possibly in the 19th century) the manuscript received a brown leather cover, to which side a title was added: Manuscriptos / Varios.

Inside the songbook, an inscription reads Porto, dia de S. Miguel, 603. (Porto, St. Michael's Day,i.e., 29 September 1603). In spite of that, the music therein is considerably older, being dated as belonging to the period between 1560-1580. This songbook contains the only Portuguese manuscript madrigals known to date, besides vilancetes, cantigas and two rare examples of sacred villancicos, one for Christmas (Pues a Dios humano vemos) and the other for the feast of Corpus Christi (O manjar bivo, dulçe i provechoso).

A few songs are also found in other manuscript sources, as for instance the Cancioneiro de Elvas, and in printed Spanish editions of the 16th century, but the majority of the works are unica, that is, found exclusively in this manuscript.

Among the poets that have been identified are Dom Manuel de Portugal (1516-1606) and the poet-composer Jorge de Montemor (c.1520-1561), as well as the Castilians Garcilaso de la Vega (1503-1536) and the little-known poet Cetina "the Nun".

Concordance with other manuscripts: