Autograph

autograph, any manuscript handwritten by its author, either in alphabetical or musical notation. (The term also refers to a person’s handwritten signature.) Aside from its antiquarian or associative value, an autograph may be an early or corrected draft of a manuscript and provide valuable evidence of the stages of composition or of the “correct” final version of a work.

No autographs of ancient Greek or Roman authors survive; manuscripts of their works are rarely older than the 6th century ad and more often belong to the 9th and 10th centuries. In the European Middle Ages, before the invention of printing, theological, historical, and literary works were copied in regular “book hands” by professional scribes who were monks. It is thus difficult to speak of medieval autographs, although some manuscripts of chronicles appear to have been actually written by their compilers. Probably the earliest known European lay signature is that of the Spanish captain the Cid, dated 1096. Official documents of the kings in early medieval times were normally validated by the affixing of a seal. Edward III (1327–77) is the first English king whose writing survives, though he was not the first literate English king.

By the end of the Middle Ages literacy had become more widespread. The invention of printing ended the large-scale anonymous copying of manuscripts by hand. The hallmarks of individualism became more important. Examples of the autographs of most of the great figures of the Renaissance—Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Ludovico Ariosto, Albrecht Dürer, to name a few—are preserved in national libraries. Most of the specimens of handwriting from the European Renaissance are private or official letters that were preserved more for their literary or historical interest than for their value as autographs.

From the 18th century the supply of autograph material of almost every notable figure in the arts, sciences, or public life becomes more abundant. Huge collections of private and semipublic papers of public figures are preserved in archives and libraries and include examples of the autographs of almost every notable who has put pen to paper. Modern documents of any length are usually keyed into an electronic file and printed, but an autograph signature remains the normal method of authentication. The computer revolution has resulted in a significant decline in the number of handwritten manuscripts produced.

Most of what is said of literary autographs is true also of musical autographs, which are collected privately and in libraries both for the information that they give to scholars and for their associative value. The autographs of some of the 48 preludes and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as the Beethoven sketchbooks, which are among the most precious of the British Museum’s collection, throw much light on the composers’ original intentions and their revision, as do the autographs of Ludwig van Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio. Musical autographs can also be used to correct errors that may have been introduced by copyists in regard to tempo or dynamics, and they may provide evidence of authenticity in cases of disputed authorship. For instance, study of the autograph of a composition by Bach that had long been attributed to his son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach revealed that the son’s signature had been added to the father’s work. Recognition of the importance of such autograph manuscripts has led to the collection not only of originals but also of photostat copies of them, begun by A. van Hoboken in Vienna in 1927, and later by Otto E. Albrecht in the United States.