Abstract
In 1891 Johannes Bolte published an essay on a set of embroidered partbooks he discovered in the Royal Library in Brussels. The text and music of the four-part song Mag ich dem Glück nit danken viel are stitched on a linen ground with silk and gold thread. Bolte copied the lyrics and identified the source as a present for Mary, Queen of Hungary and governor of the Netherlands. The precious object is nowadays lost without trace, but the song itself survived in a concordance and was most likely composed by Ludwig Senfl. The paper drafts a scenario for the origin of the Brussels partbooks, by relating them to further sets of embroidered partbooks, which have survived in the collections of Ambras Castle, Innsbruck. It also traces all of the music known to have been transmitted in the same style – only very few of the sources are still extant – and collates the characteristics of those exquisite musical presents.