Constructing Identities in a Music Manuscript: The Medici Codex as a Gift*
Abstract The motet manuscript known as the Medici Codex is associated by modern scholarship with the 1518 marriage of Lorenzo II de' Medici and Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne. It was once thought that the manuscript was made in France and given to Lorenzo by Francis I, but now it is almost unanimously agreed that it was made in Rome under the patronage of Pope Leo X. Since this revision, no one has put forward a detailed view of how the manuscript relates to the circumstances under which it was given and to the individuals involved, or how it functions as a gift. This study places the manuscript in the context of other gifts associated with the marriage to arrive at such a view.