The two-volume set includes two chapters by MIT Associate Professor of Music, Michael Scott Cuthbert giving a new history of the Trecento: Italian music of the fourteenth (and early fifteenth) century. The first chapter resituates the long-studied secular music of Italy in the context of new discoveries from across the continent. The second chapter is a major synthesis of the scattered remains of the once thriving tradition of sacred music during the time of the Great Papal Schism, connecting Italy to neglected traditions in central and eastern Europe.