Fitzwilliam Virginal Book

Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, an early 17th-century English manuscript collection of 297 pieces for keyboard by many of the major composers of the period, including William Byrd, who is represented by 67 pieces; John Bull (44); Giles Farnaby (52); and Peter Philips (19). In his preface to the 1899 edition, W. Barclay Squire proposed that the original manuscript had been copied by the younger Francis Tregian (1574?–1618) during a long confinement for recusancy in the Fleet Prison in London. This speculation has since been discounted in several respects, from the duration of his stay in prison to the reason for his confinement there (debt, rather than religious beliefs). It seems certain that the collection was the product of scholarly care and the love of music intended to record and collate popular and well-written music for the virginal. The manuscript, which bears the collector’s initials and various abbreviations of his name, was acquired by Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion, and together with the remainder of his music library and his art and medieval manuscript collections, it forms the core of the collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England. The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book was published in 1894–99.