Besides printers and engravers, copyists are essential links in the production of musical sources. They may work in a very productive workshop (Philidor and Fossard's is a typical example), or alternatively they may be occasional copyists, in charge of preparing the performance of a particular work. Their production can be part of a commercial aim (as at Foucault and Loulié) or a heritage ambition. Their production has been considered mainly through studies of music collections or in the study of a composer's critical edition. Their work is all the more difficult to appreciate because their copies are rarely signed nor dated, so that their identification is sometimes difficult. In addition to the handwriting itself, their work can be qualified with the tools of codicology (papers, collation, binding...) as well as rastrology (layout, measurements, inks...).

A webinar was held between February and July 2021, the sessions of which were summarised in a notebook Hypotheses :

Hypotheses notebook

Between 2023 and 2024, the project continued with :

• several missions to examine manuscript collections in France ;
• the first publication of a catalogue of copyists;
• and possibly a new seminar.