Cancioneiro de Belém

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.

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.

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).