On 20 March 2026, the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár announced at a press event that the manuscript collection of the Bártfa Collection—comprising more than 2,600 items and containing outstanding sources of 16th–17th-century European sacred music (primarily Netherlandish, German, and Italian)—has been made freely accessible via the Copia content service platform.
The collection is one of the most significant Central European collections of early music sources from the 16th and 17th centuries. It documents the flourishing sacred music practice of the Church of St. Edigius in Bártfa (Bardejov, now Slovakia), and constitutes the earliest coherent holding within the Theatre History and Music Collection of the National Library.
The formation of the collection spans from the mid-16th century to the end of the 17th century, during the heyday of the town of Bártfa (Bardejov). The town’s citizens adhered to the Lutheran faith and frequently studied at German universities, primarily in Wittenberg. A key figure in the town’s cultural development was Leonhard Stöckel (1510–1560), who, during his studies in Wittenberg, established personal contacts with Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon.
Stöckel assumed the leadership of the Bártfa school in 1539, and his work not only raised the standard of education but also had a direct impact on the internationally oriented musical practice of the Church of St. Edigius.
The material originating from the church’s music library entered the institution’s collection in 1915. The contemporary manuscript and printed partbooks preserve more than five thousand works from the Netherlandish, German, Italian, and Upper Hungarian repertoire, representing the flourishing period of 16th–17th-century polyphonic vocal music.
The compositions have predominantly survived in partbook format, although works of secular instrumental and vocal music from the period are also included, preserved in partbooks and in tablature notation.
The manuscript holdings released in the current publication are distributed across thirty-three shelfmarks and comprise a total of seventy partbooks. They also include several compositions that survive exclusively within this collection. The online publication of the printed holdings, comprising twenty shelfmarks, is expected in the second half of the year.