Attaignant streamlined printing techniques (following the innovations of Gutenberg in 1465 and Petrucci in 1501) so that a single imprint would contain the staff, note and text. The Athenaeum’s great Attaignant tome is the better of the only two in existence. The other, in Vienna, is lacking the dedication to Francis, Cardinal of Tournon and the title page, on which was printed a magnificent and much reproduced woodcut by Oronce Fine.

“The Athenaeum Attaignant was part of the Henry Knox Library, which came to our collection in 1809”, explains H. Harrison McCall, director of finance, and the Athenaeum’s resident musicologist. “Knox was a Boston bookseller who rose through the ranks to become George Washington’s secretary of war”, McCall adds. “However, there is evidence that Margaret Hackett, a former reference librarian, believed the volume to have been brought from Europe in 1796 by Père Matignon, an emissary sent to open a Catholic mission in Boston”.

The exhibition opens 13 February and runs until mid-summer. It’s free and open to the public. For directions see the Athenaeum’s website: www.bostonathenaeum.org/home.html