Music copyist and trader Petrus Alamire (Nuremberg, ca. 1470 - Mechelen, 1536) was a scion of the Bavarian merchant family Imhoff and moved at a young age to the Low Countries, where he stayed at the Burgundian-Habsburg court. He led a workshop for copyists and illuminators. The world and work of Petrus Alamire was the subject of the travelling exhibition Petrus Alamire. Polyphony in the Picture in Antwerp Cathedral from 21 August to 30 November 2015. The exhibition won a number of prestigious awards, and included an innovative media installation Speculum Musurgica, allowing visitors to experience polyphony spatially. Central to this entire project were the skilfully executed manuscripts, their function, their meaning and the richness of early sixteenth-century music.

The beautifully illuminated music manuscripts from the workshop of Petrus Alamire will introduce you to rulers, composers, musicians, art and the whole world view of Flanders and Europe around 1500. Choir- and songbooks are brought to life visually and aurally. Through digital images of the finest pages and details, you will gain access to the entire manuscript. You can fully immerse yourself in the sound world of early sixteenth-century polyphony. Walking through artist Rudi Knoops' media installation Speculum Musurgica, you will experience the polyphonic "fabric" of the music, as a whole, or as a multitude of individual musical lines, and see the musicians at work.

The exhibition developed in 2015, curated by Bart Demuyt, David Burn and Manfred Sellink and displayed in Antwerp Cathedral, has a modular design, intended for the purpose of touring internationally: (a) panels with life-size reproductions of photographs from all the manuscripts concerned; (b) films based on digital images, with sharp details projected onto high-resolution screens; (c) manuscripts (including all the Alamire codices held in Belgium), paintings and sculptures; (d) the innovative, experiential multimedia installation Speculum Musurgica; (e) a facsimile of the Alamire manuscript now held in Mechelen; (f) media guides with information, image material and music recordings; (g) publications.