POPP makes it easy for users to obtain a synoptic view of Petrucci’s book designs in a quartet of visualizations:

Book Design
Formes & Layouts
Formes & Folios
Woodcuts – Tenor

In the Book Design visualization, Filter by Source for the book you would like to investigate, then Sort by Folio so the Repertory cards line up in order according to their placement in the source. You will see that we have placed an image of the decorated initial on the front of each card. Each one is the specific initial that appears on that folio in that source – we have not re-used images of initials from other pages or other sources. Information on each card includes the printer’s signature, foliation, and layout of the composition in choirbook format (across an entire opening), compact choirbook format (on a single face, with each voice part starting on a new staff), or super-compact choirbook format (on a single face, with voice parts starting sometimes in the middle of a staff).

If you would like to inspect the woodcut initials side-by-side, Sort by Name instead of folio, and the cards will re-organize in alphabetical order.

Or, if you would like to investigate the Petrucci’s use of woodcut initials across different publications, in the Filter by Source options, select more than one checkbox, then Sort by Name to see the initials side-by-side.

The Formes & Layouts visualization offers information about Petrucci’s gatherings, formes, and layouts as they relate to the languages of frottola poems. The default setting for this visualization places Forme at the top of the screen, followed by Layout and Language at the bottom. If you would like to give Language greater priority, drag the word Language to the top of the screen. You can do the same with any of the categories.

The default setting for this visualization arranges the data fields within each category from largest to smallest. If you would like the data fields to appear in numerical order, hover your cursor over the name of the category (Forme or Layout, for example) – the words alpha and size will appear next to it. Click on the word alpha.

Formes & Folios gives information about Gathering, Forme, Page orientation, Imposition, Layout, and Folio for all of Petrucci’s books that have been entered into our dataset. In this visualization, if you would like to see what forme and gathering pertain to frottole printed on folio 02v in any of Petrucci’s books, click on the line 02v under the category Folio. Notice that blue stripes highlight Forme III. Note, too, that all the songs printed on folio 02v in any book are then listed at the bottom of the visualization. Click on any one of these to call up more information about that specific frottola, including a transcript.

The Woodcuts – Tenor visualization allows you to see, side-by-side, all of the woodcuts used to print the voice-part designation Tenor in Petrucci’s first book of frottole. By always including a snippet of the staff lines in these images, we demonstrate that the woodcuts bear many different spatial relationships to the staff lines. They were therefore probably inked and placed by hand rather than being inserted into the forme and run through the press. Contrast this information with the images of decorated initials in the Book Design visualization, where you will see a detailed and remarkable similarity in the placement of decorated initials with regard to the staff lines, indicating that the initials were probably placed in the forme, together with either notes or text, when the pages were run through the press.