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A maxima, duplex longa, larga (in British usage: large), octuple note, octuple whole note, or octuple entire musical note was a musical note used commonly in thirteenth and fourteenth century music and occasionally until the end of the sixteenth century. It was usually twice or, rarely, three times (Stoessel 2009, 181) as long as a longa, four or six or nine times as long as a breve, and 8, 12, 18, or 27 times as long as a semibreve (whole note). Like the stem of the longa, the stem of the maxima generally pointed downwards except occasionally when it appeared on the bottom line or space. Before around 1430, the maxima was written with a solid, black body. Over the course of the fifteenth century, like most other note values, the head of the maxima became void (Apel 1961, 87).
In most early sources the duplex longa has twice the body of a longa, but before 1250 there is often no clear difference of shape and the presence of the duplex longa is instead merely suggested by a greater distance between the notes in the tenor (in score notation), caused by the greater number of notes in the upper parts (Apel 1961, 224, 245). See Mensural notation for examples.
The name for this note in European languages is derived from two of the three Latin names, either maxima or larga. (On "larga" as a term, see Johannes Verulus de Anagnia 1977, 30-31 : "Nomina vero ipsarum sunt haec, scilicet larga, longa, brevis, semibrevis et minima".)
In modern theoretical contexts, it is occasionally called an octuple note (Anonymous 2016; Owen 2012; Peko 2015), octuple whole note (Asooja, Ernali, and Buiterlaar [2014]), or even octuple entire musical note (Anonymous 2016).