A series of critical editions of early musical works belonging to the treasures of the Slovenian cultural heritage was founded at the birth of the Institute of Musicology, its first volume being published in 1983. The series was named Monumenta artis musicae Sloveniae and comprises important works by Slovenian composers, compositions by other composers connected during earlier periods with the geographical area of modern Slovenia and selected important works preserved in various national archives and libraries. About one third of the existing volumes are devoted to the compositional opus of Jacobus Handl-Gallus, one of the foremost Central European composers of the late sixteenth century and a native of Carniola (i.e., Slovenia). The modern edition provided by the series rescues from oblivion the names of early native composers and ones active within this geographical area: Daniel Lagkhner, Gabriel Plavec, Georg Prenner, Isaac Posch, Gabriello Puliti, Janez Krstnik Dolar and Janez Krstnik Novak, among others. The volumes contain introductory studies of the composers and the published works as well as editorial notes on the musical transcriptions. The editions are bilingual (in Slovenian and English).

The first editor and the founder of the series was Dragotin Cvetko. The co-editor during the years 1986–1993 was Danilo Pokorn, who after 1993 edited the collection by himself. Ivan Klemenčič was the chief editor from 1996 to 2004, and Tomaž Fanagel from 2005 to 2008; since 2009 this responsibility has been held by Metoda Kokole.

Online editions

From 2020 the volumes of the series are also published online. The intention of online presentation of Monumenta artis musicae Sloveniae is twofold: to offer open access to existing editions and to prepare a platform for new, completely digital volumes in the series.

We are starting by opening up to any interested musicologist and/or performer the fruits of nearly forty years of past research into the national musical heritage undertaken under the auspices of the Institute of Musicology. The earliest of the existing volumes date back to the early 1980s, and it should be noted here that in some cases recent research and the constant increase in data regarding sources worldwide (including ever more digitized originals etc.) have already appreciably transformed our knowledge of the published authors, their works, performance practice etc. so that new textual commentaries and corrigenda are called for. This is why we are adding new Introductions and Corrigenda to the original scanned editions, in order, at least, to draw the attention of the various users towards the new research and data that are available today.

Second, the electronic series is to become a platform to be developed over time into new, completely digital volumes containing our early musical heritage following the traditional scheme but using modern technological support for the visual presentation of music.