| Thomas J. Mathiesen, Director | Peter Slemon, Associate Director |
The Thesaurus Musicarum Latinarum (TML) is an evolving database of the entire corpus of Latin music theory written during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It complements but does not duplicate the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL), Lexicon musicum Latinum medii aevi (LmL), and similar projects such as the Center for Computer Analysis of Texts (CCAT) and saggi musicali italiani (SMI). The TML, a project of a consortium of universities, is managed by a Project Committee, an Editorial Advisory Committee, and a Project Director, with the Project Office centered at Indiana University--Bloomington. Work on the TML has been partially supported by generous grants from The National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency.
The Project Committee agreed from the outset on two fundamentals. First, the TML should enable users to locate and retrieve the text of the source, just as it stands and without editorial intrusions. For example, an author attribution appearing in the Coussemaker Scriptores that modern scholarship considers erroneous would still be retained in the data file (although annotations clarifying attributions and providing other information about the data file are included in the TML Canon [available in print, as a PDF file, and as a HyperCard stack; for further information, click here]). The only exceptions to the rule of representing the text as accurately as possible are governed by the "Principles of Orthography" and the "Table of Codes for Noteshapes ...." Second, the TML should contain every printed edition, even if an earlier edition might seem to have been supplanted by a more modern one. The number of editions is large, but as the treatises in general are fairly short, the overall quantity of data at present amounts to approximately 433 megabytes. In the longer range, the TML aims to include as many manuscript sources as possible so that scholars will be able to retrieve not only published material but also readings that appear in the source material itself.
At present, the entire TML database may be downloaded to a scholar's personal computer (MS-DOS, Macintosh, or Windows), on which in a matter of seconds every occurrence of a particular term, phrase or passage, or group of terms in proximity can be located and displayed through special programs, UltraFind (for Macintosh) and Eureka! (for Windows98, NT, 2000, or XP). Once it has been downloaded to a scholar's personal computer, the database can be tailored to the scholar's particular interests. Any part of the TML, text and graphics, will run separately or together. With UltraFind or Eureka!, searches of the TML can be endlessly configured: earlier editions of the same treatise can be included or excluded, treatises of specified centuries or a certain special group of texts ranging across many centuries can be marked for search, an individual treatise can be searched, and so on.
The TML can be accessed in three ways, listed below.
Each of these options is fully described in the TML Introduction. Although they may at first appear complex (especially if one is not used to communicating through mainframe computers), the TML has been designed for scholars to use quickly and easily in a large number of ways and with little, if any, investment in new computer hardware or software.
Search the TML
To view files, select one of the following links:
