During the last forty years, Byzantine musical studies have been enriched through a series of important analytical catalogues of Byzantine musical manuscripts preserved in many countries of the world, compiled, among others, by Gr. Stathis, M. Chatzigiakoumis, L. Perria and J. Raasted, Ev. Gertsman, A. Chaldaiakis, E. Giannopoulos, D. Balageorgos and F. Kritikou, Fr S. Barbu-Bucur, Fr F. Bucescu, and D. Touliatos. These instrumenta studiorum set the research and teaching of Byzantine music on a new grounding, revealing a wealth of composers, works, categories and styles of chant, and allowing important progress in palaeography, historiography, morphology and analysis, as well as in many other fields of Byzantine music.

The publication of the Catalogue of the Greek musical manuscripts of Santissimo Salvatore in Messina, one of the most important monastic centres of Graecia Magna, founded in the twelfth century under Norman rule, fulfils a long-standing desideratum of Byzantine musical studies, which grew through the work of such distinguished musicologists as Fr Lorenzo Tardo, Fr Bartolomeo di Salvo and Oliver Strunk.

Donatella Bucca, one of the leading exponents of the Italian school of Byzantine musicology, describes in her catalogue a unique collection of twenty-three Greek manuscripts, most of them dated between the tenth and the thirteenth century, which are housed today in the Regional Library of the University of Messina. The codices belong in several different types – among them Gospel Lectionaries, Menaia, Sticheraria, Psaltika, Psaltikon-Asmatikon, Kontakarion, Asma – and are of various provenance: mainly southern Italy and Sicily, but also Constantinople or a neighbouring metropolitan centre, and the Palestinian-Cypriot area. They display a multitude of text-hands in majuscule and minuscule of various types, and many different musical notations, ranging from classical Ekphonetic notation and the relatively developed Coislin notation from the Palaeobyzantine period to Middle Byzantine notation. They contain precious musical repertory, some of which is known only from southern Italian sources. Furthermore, the collection from Messina includes many musical and hymnographic palimpsests.

After a substantial introduction (pp. xv–lxxv) on the development of Byzantine musical notations and the collection of musical manuscripts of SS Salvatore di Messina, Bucca presents the standards for descriptions of the manuscripts applied in her catalogue (pp. lxxvii–lxviii). In the main part of the catalogue (pp. 1–234), every manuscript is submitted to a very detailed presentation. A first section provides information about the type of manuscript according to its content, the provenance, date, material, dimensions, number of folios, number of columns and lines per folio, and palimpsest folios. There follow an exhaustive description of the content of the manuscript, including all chant incipits and with bibliographical evidence for each single piece (though in the case of stichera, references to the numbering in the Standard Abridged Version of the Sticherarion would have been a useful addition), a detailed analysis of the palimpsest folios (see e.g. Messan. gr. 129, 152, 128), and a section of comments, offering observations of codicological structure, descriptions of watermarks where applicable, the ruling type and text sizes, and a full palaeographical description including details of inks used. The musical notation is described in detail, including mention of any neumatic peculiarities, and description of the ornamentation and the miniatures is followed by any annotations in the manuscript, an account of the binding and notes about the state of conservation of the codex. A concluding section summarises the history and importance of the manuscript, with any further remarks on the feasts included and an up-to-date bibliography.

Sixty colour and monochrome plates allow the reader to gain a clear image of all the manuscripts of the collection and to observe the different types of writing and musical notations used. The catalogue is complemented by four indexes: of incipits of hymnographic texts (pp. 292–390), including mention of almost 500 unpublished pieces; of incipits of Synaxarion notes from the manuscript Messan. gr. 52, a Menaion of Palestinian-Cypriot provenance with Synaxaria for September to January, with a very rich heortological content; an index of biblical readings, based especially on the Lectionaries of the Gospels included in the collection; and an analytical index of feasts, saints, hymnographers and composers, hymnographic and musical genres, types of services, manuscripts, types of writing, types of musical notations, etc.

It will perhaps be useful to provide a brief survey of the twenty-three manuscripts, noting various points of interest. There are ten Lectionaries, all but one Gospel Lectionaries. Messan. gr. 65 is a twelfth-century book perhaps from the Palestinian-Egyptian area, using Ekphonetic notation of the classical system. Gr. 66 was written in Constantinople or a neighbouring metropolitan centre in the second half of the tenth century, and uses classical Ekphonetic notation with some archaic traits. Gr. 73 was probably written in Rhodes around 1172, and is the only manuscript in this catalogue to have been written by an identified scribe, a monk Nilos from Patara; it also employs classical Ekphonetic notation. Gr. 75 is of unknown provenance, of the twelfth century, and Gr. 94 is perhaps from Constantinople and late eleventh, both also with classical Ekphonetic notation. Gr. 95 may come from Epirus, in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and employs the degenerated system of Ekphonetic notation. The classical system is found in Gr. 96, from the Palestinian-Cypriot area in the second half of the twelfth century, and Gr. 112, from Calabria or Sicily in the first half of the same century. Gr. 131 is the only non-Gospel book in this section, a Prophetologion of unknown provenance, perhaps provincial, from the eleventh or twelfth century, and Gr. 175.II is a fragment of a Gospel Lectionary probably from Constantinople in the second half of the tenth century; both use classical Ekphonetic notation.

Of the books containing melodic notations, six are found with Palaeobyzantine notation of type Coislin V in Floros's categorisation, the phase described by Strunk as ‘relatively developed’. Messan. gr. 51 is a Parakletike or Great Oktoechos written in the Palestinian-Cypriot area at the end of twelfth century. It is only partially neumed, but includes beautiful miniatures at the beginning of each mode, with images of Christ's Resurrection and the great hymnographers (St John of Damascus et al.) created especially for this manuscript and illustrating the content of the first anastasimon sticheron of each mode. Gr. 52 is a Menaion with Synaxaria for September to January, also from the Palestinian-Cypriot area but from the end of the twelfth century; only the idiomela stichera are neumed. Gr. 110 is an early twelfth-century Sticherarion from Calabria, neumed throughout, while Gr. 137+140 is a Menaion for September and October from Messina, dating from the second quarter of the twelfth century in which only a few stichera are neumed. This manuscript includes an Office of the Calabrian St Elias Spelaiotes. Gr. 138 is a Menaion for November and December, written in Messina in the second quarter of the twelfth century by an unnamed scribe from the entourage of SS Salvatore. Only the two first folios contain neumes, but there are a few palimpsest folios, some also displaying Palaeobyzantine neumes in the scriptio inferior. Gr. 142 is a Sticherarion written in Calabria or Sicily in the first half of the twelfth century and containing some offices not found in the Standard Abridged Version (SAV) of the Sticherarion.

The final seven manuscripts all employ the Middle Byzantine notation. Messan. gr. 120 is a Psaltikon of the second half of the thirteenth century from the area of Calabria or Sicily and displays the tradition of the long Psaltikon style (in Thodberg's terminology). Gr. 127 is a thirteenth-century Sticherarion of similar provenance, a typical representative of the SAV. Gr. 128 is a Kontakarion, again of Calabria or Sicily and displaying the long Psaltikon style, but of slightly later date. The entire manuscript is a palimpsest, containing in the scriptiones inferiores, among other things, portions of three earlier Sticheraria of Italo-Greek provenance from the beginning of the twelfth century, one perhaps from the eleventh, all using relatively developed Coislin notation. Gr. 129 is a Psaltikon-Asmatikon, perhaps from SS Salvatore di Messina, from the second quarter of the thirteenth century, again displaying the long Psaltikon style. This too is a palimpsest, containing as scriptio inferior a Sticherarion of the early twelfth century in Coislin notation. Gr. 152 is a Sicilian Exodiastikon of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, with only a few pieces neumed. Much of it is palimpsest, the earlier layers including portions of two twelfth-century Sticheraria in Coislin notation, one relatively developed and the other fully. Gr. 154 is an Anthologion from the end of the sixteenth century, of unknown provenance, and Gr. 161+175.VII is a rare example of the repertory of the Asma, a manuscript of the first half of the fourteenth century perhaps from Sicily and including some palimpsest folios. This important source includes one of the oldest attestations of the term ‘καλoφωνικóν’, as differentiated from the asma.

With its accurate and detailed manner of presentation concerning both form and content of the manuscripts, Donatella Bucca's catalogue sets new standards for this type of codicological and palaeographical work. Thanks to its precise, well-informed and exhaustive descriptions, the publication will be of use not only to musicologists and palaeographers, but also to Greek philologists, especially those concerned with Greek hymnography, to art historians and to liturgists. We congratulate Donatella Bucca on providing an ideal instrumentum, and a precious handbook especially for teachers and students of the palaeography of Byzantine music.