«Sonatas XV cujos Auctores Se naõ declaraõ»

This article discusses an anonymous manuscript containing fifteen violin sonatas by Michele Mascitti, which once belonged to the Monastery of Santa Cruz de Coimbra, in Central Portugal, and is now kept at the University of Coimbra’s General Library. After describing the manuscript and its peculiarities, and venturing its possible origins, the relations with the prints of Mascitti’s op. 1 and 2 from Paris, London and Amsterdam are established. It follows a discussion on the relation between Mascitti’s sonatas and the other repertoire kept in the same collection — which includes the only known Portuguese manuscript sources of works by Corelli, Albinoni, Lonati and Capellini, and also the largest collection of 18th-century chamber music prints (Valentini, Corelli, Geminiani, Veracini, etc.) in the country. The manuscript and its contents are contextualized in light of the Portuguese musical life of the first half of the 18th century, and of Santa Cruz de Coimbra in particular. The article also aims to ascertain, even if cautiously, the influence of Italian instrumental works, including Mascitti’s sonatas, on the works by Portuguese composers, such as the keyboard sonatas by José António Carlos de Seixas, a native of Coimbra and whose works survive in the very same collection. In the context of the dissemination, influence and modeling of the Italian Baroque style in Portugal, the discovery of this music collection in Coimbra, and of the sonatas by Mascitti in particular, is of the utmost importance, challenging many of the views still defended in the more traditional narratives. Not only reveals an interest for Mascitti’s sonatas far away from the main European music paths of circulation, but also suggests that the dissemination in Portugal of the Italian sonata repertory may have occasionally occurred independently of the printed editions from Northern Europe.