The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is a primary source of keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England, i.e., the late Renaissance and very early Baroque. It takes its name from Viscount Fitzwilliam who bequeathed this manuscript collection to Cambridge University in 1816. It is now housed in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. The word virginals does not necessarily denote any specific instrument and might refer to anything with a keyboard. History It was given no title by its copyist and the ownership of the manuscript before the eighteenth century is unclear. At the time The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book was put together most collections of keyboard music were compiled by performers and teachers: other examples include Will Forster's Virginal Book, Clement Matchett's Virginal Book, and Anne Cromwell's Virginal Book. It is possible that the complexities of typesetting music precluded the printing of much keyboard music during the late Renaissance and it was not until the advent of engraving music plates that pieces for keyboard were published. The first known example of this is Parthenia, which was published in c. 1612. The FVB was once given the nomenclature of Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, although the title cannot be correct since much of its contents were written after her death in 1603. Another hypothesis, which still has supporters, is that it belonged to Francis Tregian the Younger, a recusant and amateur musician. It has been argued that Tregian may have copied the entire collection while imprisoned in the period leading up to his death in 1614. The nature of Tregian's contribution to the book has been disputed. Although other scholarship suggested that, as compiler, it is unlikely that Tregian was imprisoned long enough to undertake the copying involved, a closer inspection of the manuscript reveals two layers of copying, of which nos. 1-95 pieces form the first. This layer might have been done at any time previous to Tregian's 1612 incarceration. The manuscript includes music dating from approximately 1562 to 1612 by John Bull, William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Giles Farnaby (51 of whose 52 known pieces are included), Thomas Tallis. and Martin Peerson. Continental composers are also represented by the English composer in exile Peter Philips, whose music is largely arrangements of sacred music, madrigals and chansons. Other foreign composers are represented by, among others, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, the elusive Jehan Oystermayre and Giovanni Picchi. There are 298 pieces