ABSTRACT

Most Croatian towns lack archival sources that can demonstrate the quality and quantity of their musical repertoire in the first half of the seventeenth century. However, a manuscript kept in the Archives of the Cathedral Chapter in Hvar (on the Island of Hvar, region of Dalmatia) contains a list of books and music material once owned by the Cathedral Chapter in 1646/47. This finding could serve as strong and very rare evidence about musical practice in seventeenth-century Hvar and Dalmatia in general. Although lost nowadays, recorded music titles, listed in eight different sections, testify to the dissemination and presence of contemporary Italian (mostly Venetian early Baroque) music literature once in Hvar. This essay discusses each section of the music inventory with the aid of tables showing its content regarding composers, years, publishers of first editions, and music genres.