CANTIGAS DE SANTA MARÍA

   Illustrated collection of over 400 songs (cantigas) about the Blessed Virgin Mary compiled circa 1270–1290 under the direction of King Alfonso El Sabio. The poems are in Portuguese-Galician of varying meters and lengths, although most have refrains, and are generally miracle stories, except that every tenth song is a hymn to the Virgin. Transcriptions of the square (non-mensural) musical notation are inevitably controversial.