The Historical Development of the Lute in the 17th Century

Author(s): Michael Lowe

Source: The Galpin Society Journal , May, 1976, Vol. 29 (May, 1976), pp. 11-25
Published by: Galpin Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/841856

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 MICHAEL LOWE

The Historical Development

the Lute in the i7th Centu
A T the firstHellwig
Friedemann International Lutepaper,
read a most informative Week at Breukelen, Holland, in 1972
'Lute Con-
struction in the Renaissance and the Baroque'.' It seemed to me then
that the time was ripe to extend this survey into a more detailed analysis
of some of the features of historical lute design with a view to establishing
as clear a relative chronology as possible for the historical development
of the lute.
A clear relative chronology is the first essential to the study and
understanding of any class of historical instrument just as it is to any
class of archaeological object, since it is only against the fixed and
definite forms that exceptional details may be assessed. Ifa 'mainstream'
historical development or, to use an art historical term, a 'classical
tradition' can be established and elucidated, then it may be possible to
gain a fuller understanding of and even venture explanations for those
details which seem to lie outside that mainstream. We shall always
have, however, an incomplete picture since we are subject to the
chance survival of our material, and an intimate knowledge of every
surviving instrument, in the case of the lute, is knowledge of but a
minute fraction of the instruments which were made and played
during the period of the lute's popularity.
In establishing our relative chronology, however, we must not look
merely at surviving instruments, though these present enough prob-
lems of interpretation since they are at one and the same time the
archaeological material and also the site, with different building
periods, destructions or modifications of parts, all of which will require
explication if the instrument is not to present to us a false picture. We
must encompass the music written for the instrument, understanding
its requirements, as well as gaining a familiarity with those treatises
concerned with the lute. We must carefully sift the evidence afforded
by iconography (perhaps the most difficult task and certainly the
class of evidence with the most pitfalls) and finally we must collect as
many as possible of those passing references in literature in the hope
of a few final clues. It ought not to be necessary to set down at such
length things so basic, yet the lute, for all its historical importance and

II

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the richness of the evidence, has not attracted the systematic study
which it merits.
It may be wondered why, having stressed the need for a sound
relative chronology for the lute, I do not begin at the beginning with
the arrival of the lute in Europe since it is usually a dangerous practice
to work backwards in the study of history. In taking a period late in
the instrument's development we are helped by less self-contradictory
evidence. A high percentage of surviving lutes retain the features of
this late period of their development, and by understanding fully
these features we are able the more easily to deduce what the original
state of these instruments may have been. In the i7th and I8th centuries
the role of the lute was becoming more circumscribed and this too
makes our task the easier.
It must be stressed at the outset that the period I6oo-I700 is a purely
arbitrary one and does not reflect a specific period in the lute's history.
As Mr. Hellwig points out2 there is no such thing as the renaissance
lute and the baroque lute but only a continual development over the
years. We should not be surprised at this since it is equally impossible
to find boundary dates to the various styles and so-called periods of
the music itself. The lute had undergone most of its development by
the end of the I7th century, and the I8th century story is one of
development of the music rather than of the instruments. As might
be expected, the rise of the keyboard to a dominant position in home
music making in the mid-I8th century caused a diversification of the
ute as it was adapted to meet various requirements and a separate
study will be required to shed light on this period of decline.

We may begin our survey by examining the lutes which were in

current use around I6oo00. The six-course instrument had held sway for
the greater part of the I6th century but music appears for seven courses
from around i580.3 Once the extension of the lute's range downward
began it continued with acceleration over the next few decades though
seven courses remained a common number, judging from the music.
It may well be that a technological development in gut string making
was necessary before this extension of the lute's range could be made.4
Italy was most likely the country in which these developments were
first utilised. It is interesting to note that in England, where the six-
course lute seems to have remained the norm until at least as late as
I6oo, the range of the seven-course instrument was known, for
William Barley published music for lute and orpharion5 and whilst
the lute music requires but six courses the pieces for the wire-strung
orpharion make frequent use of a seventh course one tone below the

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sixth. Thomas Robinson in his Schoole of Musick6 writes for seven
courses, whether at a tone or a fourth below the sixth course. England,
however, was late in accepting the developments made on the Con-
tinent.

At the very beginning of the I7th century can be found the seeds of
a new style of lute playing, arising out of the earlier styles, which was
to push the lute towards further radical development. This time
France is at the centre of development7 and the innumerable courantes
which appear in manuscripts and printed sources are a hallmark of the
style. The publication in I600 of Le TrIsor d'Orphie by Antoine
Franqisque is a convenient milestone because in it, for the first time,
are included pieces for a lute tuned otherwise than in the standard
16th-century tuning of 4th, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 4th. This appearance of
scordatura, or cordes avallies tuning to use Franqisque's term, is im-
portant as marking the beginning of a period of experiment with
different tunings which became a feature of French music throughout
the first half of the I7th century.
But what of the lutes themselves? Backs were still being made of a
small number of ribs-9, Ii, or I3-and doubtless instruments made
earlier in the I6th century were still in service, occasionally being
modified to take more courses. A style of building, however, which
seems to have appeared in the i58os and was to enjoy a relatively short
period of popularity was at its peak around I6oo00. This was the manner
of building the back of the lute from a larger number of ribs-anything
from fifteen to more than fifty. This style of building is represented
by some of the finest products of the luthier's art; Michael Hartung,
Magno and Wendelin Tieffenbrucker being perhaps its greatest
exponents. The wood most commonly used for these backs was yew
and care was taken, whenever possible, to take each rib from that
part of the tree where the dark heartwood joins the light sapwood,
giving a distinctive striped effect to the back. This was not always
done, however, as the great octave-bass lute by Michael Hartung now
in Nuremberg8 and an instrument by Magno Tieffenbrucker now in
Berlin9 show. The back of the latter is made of twenty-three ribs of
dark heartwood with a triple fillet strip composed of ivory, black,
ivory between each rib. Woods other than yew were occasionally
used.'0 The pegboxes of these instruments, to judge from paintings
and from those few which appear unaltered, were of substantial build
and of solid appearance compared with those of the later I7th century.
Few of these instruments have survived in their original state;1: those
that have done so being for the most part very large instruments
(which we would call 'bass' and 'great-bass' lutes) which were unsuited

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 to adaptation for later use. A number of these have a double chanterelle,
the frequent use of which is corroborated by paintings and specific
references in Thomas Robinson'2 and a rather confusing section in
Thomas Mace's Musick's Monument of 1676.13 There is to my know-
ledge only one surviving ten-course instrument and that is a 'great-
bass' instrument.14
Reference to the next major development of the lute is to be found
in the section 'Of fretting the Lute' by John Dowland in Varietie of
lute-lessons edited and published by his son Robert in I6Io.15 Here
Dowland, discussing the number of frets commonly found on the
neck of a lute, states that eight was the normal number in his time16
but that of late some Frenchmen had increased the length of the neck
to ten frets. If this is taken to imply that new, longer necks were added
to existing instruments (and I think this is supported by a passage
from Piccinini which I shall quote later) the automatic lengthening of
the string length assumes a lowering in pitch of the top string, since
the overall size of a lute and its string length is generally determined
by the intended pitch of the highest-tuned string. It was tempting
to connect this lengthening of the neck to ten frets with the adoption
of the various tunings used by French lutenists of the first half of the
I7th century, the most consistent feature of which is the lowering of
the chanterelle from a nominal g' to e' or e4'. There is, however, a
representation of a ten-course lute with ten fret spaces on the neck in
a publication of Besard in 161717 which was surely intended to have
the old 'renaissance' tuning. We cannot rule out the possibility that
the introduction of the Io-fret neck coincided with the introduction
of the tenth course, but even so the lowering of pitch remains a
necessity. This increase in the string length would also make possible
a better tone from the pure gut ninth and tenth courses at the time
when the varied French tunings were in use, and indeed some com-
posers (e.g. Rene Mesangeau) require the tenth course to be tuned
down occasionally to a nominal B' or Bb'. The Io-fret neck was to
remain the norm for the rest of the lute's existence.

A study of some of the Flemish and Dutch paintings of the 162os-

1630s show Io-course lutes in use with ten frets on the neck.'8 The
music of the 1630s which was played on these Io-course instruments
was the work of such composers as Ren6 Mesangeau, Pierre Gautier,
Dubuisson, Chancy, Belleville and some of the works of Dufaut. Some
of the lutes in these pictures seem to have backs of the more rounded
shape made of yew of the type described earlier, but others appear to
have the long slender shape which we associate with the Bolongna-
made lutes of the first half of the I6th century, particularly the work

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of Laux Maler and Hans Frei.19 The apparent return to an earlier style
of making by the lute makers of the middle and late I7th and the I8th
centuries has been commented on before,20 and I think a clue to the
reason for this is given by Piccinini in the introduction to his Intavolatura
di Liuto e di Chitaronne..., Libro Primo of 1623,21 where is written:' For
many years now lutes of excellent quality have been made in Bologna,
either through being made in a long shape like a pear or through
having wide ribs, the one of which makes for sweetness, the other for
harmoniousness; it is enough that for their quality they were greatly
prized, particularly by the French who came especially to Bologna to
take some back to France, paying anything that was asked for them, so
that now very few of them are to be found'.

The French, then, were buying up as many of the old Bologna lutes
as possible and altering them to suit the needs of the time. These old
Bologna lutes were highly valued much as are Cremona violins
today, and interesting light is thrown on this desire for old instruments
by the correspondence between Jacques Gautier and Constantijn
Huyghens.22 Huyghens is asking Gautier to find him a lute by Laux
Maler, and Gautier says they are difficult to find, estimating that
there are probably only around fifty left, and not even six in England.
The estimate of fifty surviving lutes by Maler in the year 1647/8,
even allowing for a degree of inaccuracy, is itself indicative of the
alarming rate of destruction of instruments when it is compared with
the inventory of the instruments in Maler's workshop at the time of
his death.23 It is significant also that Gautier considers the average
Maler lute too small to serve as an accompanying instrument for the
voice, and that he requires to know 'In what fashion you would like
the neck to be, and whether you would like it to be both for the
playing of pieces and also for singing'. This shows a clear opinion on
the differing requirements of solo and continuo instruments, and we
shall have occasion to return to this distinction later.
It may be wondered, in the light of Gautier's acceptance of the
re-barring of the lute's soundboard and the obvious inference that
this in no way detracted from the old lute's value,24 precisely wherein
lay the value of these old instruments. We have only to consider our
present admiration for the violins of the Cremona masters when
what we, in fact, almost always hear are instruments with modern
soundpost and bass-bar, increased string length and with strings of a
different material from the originals and at a greater tension-hardly
the fairest conditions for judging an old instrument.
Doubtless many lutemakers of the 17th century in northern Europe

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 spent a certain amount of their time adapting these old lutes to the
contemporary needs, and it is surely not far from the truth if we
surmise that they produced their own instruments on models similar
to these much sought-after earlier examples. I do not, however, think
that historical sensitivity can be offered as the reason for the adoption
of this particular mould-form. The long shape of the Bologna lutes
certainly favours a tone rich in upper partials which is a great advantage
in solo music employing a low tessitura.25 The French music of the
I7th century can be a hard judge of a lute since, without clarity of
tone, articulation and ornamentation become well-nigh impossible.
Of the various tunings used by French lutenists of the first half of
the I7th century the 'D-minor' tuning was the one which was to
become the standard for the remainder of the lute's existence. It was
used by Enneniond and Jacques Gautier among the first. In this
tuning the lowest string of the instrument was still tuned to a nominal
C but an extra course had to be added. Occasionally a twelfth course
was added tuned to B', BV' or A'.26 It must be remembered that at
this period only pure gut strings were available for the basses and in
order to get a good and pure response the very best strings were
required.27 Perhaps in order to make this choice of strings less crucial
a new development was introduced, borrowing something from the
theorbo. We shall have occasion to say more about the theorbo when
we come to discuss the lute in Italy, but suffice it now to say that the
theorbo had its lowest strings greatly lengthened in order to produce
a very resonant bass which was felt to be necessary for continuo and
accompaniment of the voice. The theorbo was not, however, totally
suited to solo playing since there was a sudden break in tone quality
and resonance between the thick strings of the lowest courses stopped
on the fingerboard and the thinner diapasons on their extended neck.
The arrangement used for the eleven and twelve-course lutes tried
to even out the resonances by making each successive diapason longer
by an amount which, to judge from some of the paintings, may have
been equal to the fretting distances extended backwards.28 The result
of this was that thinner strings could be used for the lowest courses,
giving a better sound but avoiding the overpowering bass of the
theorbo. Even so, the author of the Mary Burwell lute tutor felt that
the sound from the basses of such a lute was too powerful and resonant
for the upper courses.29 No lute of this type seems to have survived
and I know of no evidence to suggest its application to ten-course
instruments. Fortunately iconographical evidence for the type is
plentiful, a small number of paintings being sufficiently detailed to
show the construction of the head.30 Single-headed and double-headed

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lutes appear occasionally in one and the same painting,"l which
illustrates what must be stressed again, namely that we can only
attempt to describe the developments of the lute and the approximate
date of these, but must not assume instantaneous acceptance of these
to the exclusion of previous forms or uniformity of practice.
It would be nice to know more of this period of transition but with
evidence limited to music and iconography it is difficult to glean firm
details. An example of this transition may be afforded by Christopher
Lowther's Lute Book.32 This was compiled in 1637 when Lowther
was studying the lute in Hamburg under a Dutch teacher. The music
assumes an eleven-course instrument (vide the page giving the tuning
of the lute) but the tuning is the old 'G-minor' tuning. We have no
way of knowing whether Lowther had a single-headed or a double-
headed lute.

At some time around I65o there was a technological development

which was to influence most of the families of stringed instruments.
This was the development of wound strings. By winding a thin
layer of wire around a gut or silk core a greater mass per unit length
could be obtained which would result in a string capable of giving
a clearer, more transparent sound. The earliest reference that I know
concerning wound strings is the advertisement by John Playford."s
The effect on the lute of the introduction of wound strings is
significant. Lutenists today often like a powerful bass on their instru-
ments and say that the old players would have chosen likewise if they
had had better strings. If this in fact were the case, the development
of wound strings would have offered those old players an opportunity
to improve their basses greatly, for by stringing a double-headed lute
with wound bass strings a very powerful lower register would result.
Doubtless this was done in the beginning but it is interesting to note
that by the last quarter of the 17th century the double-headed lute no
longer appearsu and the typical eleven-course lute is now that in
the hands of Charles Mouton in his portrait by Fr. de Troy.31 Surely
this, if anything, shows that overall treble/bass balance was considered
of greater importance for the solo lute music than sheer power. This
conclusion is supported by our previous observation on the dissatisfac-
tion expressed by the author of the Mary Burwell lute tutor with the
treble/bass balance of double-headed lutes strung solely with gut.
There are numerous examples surviving of eleven-course lutes of
this period, both new instruments and modified I6th-century ones.
One small detail which appears, for example in the Mouton portrait
and also in the schematic lute diagrams in Perrine,36 is that the eleventh

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course lies off the fingerboard, passing over an unsupported extension
of the nut and, presumably, attached to the pegs on the outside of
the pegbox.Y7 The explanation of this may be the same as for many
seemingly unexpected details, namely that it is the result of an earlier
lute modified to suit a later fashion. In this particular case it may be
that single-headed ten-course lutes were given a chanterelle rider,
and the second course made single, thus making two pegs free for the
eleventh course which would be accommodated on an extended nut.
Alternatively the bass courses could have been brought closer together
on the fingerboard. This procedure would obviate the need for a new
neck and pegbox, and if considerations of time and expense were the
same then as now the attractions of such a method are obvious. I offer
this as a possible explanation which I cannot prove; it assumes the
conversion from a single-headed ten-course to an eleven-course lute
of the type used only with wound strings. It is, of course, one of the
most difficult things to discover what was the state of a lute immed-
iately prior to a given rebuild. It is unlikely, for instance, that a double-
headed eleven-course instrument was converted from a single-headed
ten-course because in all the representations of eleven and twelve-
course double-headed instruments the main pegbox holds seven or
eight courses and the diapasons for the most part lie off the finger-
board. It would have been relatively simple to alter an existing seven
or eight-course lute to such a double-headed instrument. Here too we
cannot be dogmatic as, undoubtedly, there were many different
solutions prepared for different players.38
Perhaps here I should explain the position of Thomas Mace, a major
exception to the mainstream development as I have outlined it;
particularly important since he has left us one of the most detailed
works on lute playing in the 17th century. His Musick's Monument,
published in England in 1676, was written with the intention of
reviving an already flagging interest in the lute. England as usual was
behind the Continent in adopting the latest developments of the lute,
and in addition Mace himself seems to have been particularly con-
servative. Thus we find him advocating the eleven or twelve-course
lute with double-head (which he calls the French lute) with its seven
or eight courses on the fingerboard and four diapasons each having
its own nut. This instrument, typical of lutes thirty or forty years
earlier than the publication of Mace's book, we have already dis-
cussed and its seems to have been the type of instrument played by
Jacques Gautier (Gautier d'Angleterre). However, we have associated
this kind of lute not with the various tunings of the composers such
as Mesangeau and Chancy but with the D-minor tuning which Jacques
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Gautier himself seems to have used. Mace himself prefers the flat and
sharp tunings to the new French tuning though he does provide
some music for the latter.39

The Talbot Manuscript compiled between I685 and 170140 would

seem to show that the double-headed lute described by Mace continued
in use in England for some time after it had become obsolete on the
Continent for there the double-headed lute is called not the 'French'
Lute as in Mace but the 'English' Lute. The term 'French Lute' is
reserved for that instrument which has all its eleven courses in a
single pegbox.

The last major development of the lute belongs, strictly speaking,

to the I8th century, but as it is a simple extension of the existing late
17th century instruments it may fairly be included in the present
article. As with earlier developments I think here, too, the method of
effecting the alteration of existing instruments provided the model for
new instruments of the time. The German lutenists of the I8th century,
to whom remained the task of composition of lute music after the
demise of the instrument in France, and who produced some of the
finest music ever written for the instrument, increased the range
downwards by adding two further courses. We are fortunate in having
an example of a conversion from eleven to thirteen courses carried
out on an instrument made by one of the most important makers of
his time. This lute, now in a private collection in Switzerland, was
made in Leipzig in 1697 by Martin Hofmann. It began life as an
eleven-course lute with a single pegbox but was later converted by
the addition to the pegbox of a 'bass rider' to hold the two extra
courses which were, thus, about five cm. longer than the main rank
of strings. The bass end of the bridge was cut off at an angle and a
longer piece was added to receive the extra courses, the decorated end
of this piece being matched to the treble end of the original bridge.
In order to resist the pull of the strings on this now weakened part of
the bridge, a small buttress was added, jutting forward onto the
soundboard. The bass rider carrying the two lowest courses is never
found on any historical lutes before the thirteen-course instruments
and, apart from the possibility of thirteen-course instruments having
occasionally been made with a single head, there seems to be no
evidence for any other form of thirteen-course lute in the high baroque
period. Furthermore there is no evidence for the existence of fourteen-
course lutes during the German high baroque, this type of instrument
being an invention of some modern players who have wished to use a
low G' course in the G minor lute suite of J. S. Bach. The use of

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fourteen courses was limited to some chitarroni, theorbos and lutes in
Italy in the I7th century.

I have left until last what is probably the most difficult aspect of the
lute during the I7th century: its history in Italy. I should like to show
that the development of the lute in Italy during the 17th century is
quite separate from its development in France and the Low Countries,
and yet this development can be seen as the true continuation of the
i6th century lute, whilst in France, as we have seen, the development
was away from the 16th-century manner. As a solo instrument in
Italy the lute was destined to play a role of diminishing importance,
though the works of Bernardo Gianoncelli4l show that the instrument
was still played after the time when most people assume the lute's role
to have become solely that of a continuo instrument. But what was
the form of this solo instrument? There are a number of Italian 17th-
century 'lute-type instruments' surviving in museums and private
collections and they all, apart from those which have undergone
alteration, have a neck of at least ten fret spaces and a pegbox extended
roughly in line with the neck, and a second pegbox, containing the
long diapason courses, a prolongation of the former.42 There are
usually seven stopped courses on the fingerboard and there may be
six or seven diapasons, often all the courses being double. There are,
however, important differences of size since a significant number are
small instruments with a string length of around 57 to 59 cm. and
there are others with string lengths of around 65 to as much as 86 cm.
Usually all these instruments are termed 'theorbos' but this may con-
ceal the true identification. It is made clear by all the ancient written
evidence that the reason why the two top courses of the theorbo had
to be tuned an octave lower than in lute tuning was because the string
length of the theorbo was very long relative to the pitch of the
instrument.43 If all the surviving instruments are to be considered as
theorbos we must assume instruments of widely differing pitches,
and the small instruments must have been tuned to a very high pitch
indeed in order for it to have been impossible to tune the top two
courses at pitch. It must be said that there is some evidence from wind
instruments of the use of a high pitch in Venice-where most of these
lutes were made-at the beginning of the 17th century." The alterna-
tive explanation is that these small instruments are not theorbos but
lutes-the liuti attiorbati of the I7th century Italian lutebooks.45 We
must remember that throughout the life of the Italian solo lute there
were no wound strings and therefore some arrangement was necessary
to provide longer diapasons for the lowest courses. We should not
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be surprised then if the theorbo and the lute share the same pegbox
arrangement. The style of the music written for these instruments
is very different from the contemporary French music. Whereas
the French broken style uses the whole range of the instrument at
once, the melodic content being spread evenly from bass to treble,
thereby requiring an even response throughout the instrument, the
Italian in contrast falls much more readily into tune and bass. With
this style the break in tone between stopped strings and long diapasons
is not nearly so detrimental to the interpretation of the music.
The term 'tiorba' may have become analogous to 'lyra viol' in
England in that the most important feature of the instrument is not a
particular shape or size but a manner of tuning, though we must
remember that the theorbo by implication would be a large instrument
for its pitch. The music itself would support this view, since, whenever
the word 'liuto' or 'liuto attiorbato' is used, normal lute tuning is de-
manded, whereas the music for 'chitarrone' or 'tiorba' always requires
a lowering of the top two courses.46
Most of these small lutes have a very rounded outline and many
people today have expressed surprise that such an unattractive shape
should have been preferred after the beautiful outlines used by makers
such as Hartung and the Tieffenbruckers. Hellwig47 suggested that
there was a reversion to i5th-century shapes, but this seems to me to
be unlikely. There is ample evidence concerning the interest of the
French, during the 17th century, in instruments of an earlier age,
much of which has been cited in this article, but there is no comparable
evidence relating to such a taste in 17th-century Italy. In addition, the
round shape was not used by makers such as Raillich, Sellas and Koch
when they built chitarroni or large theorbos.48 I would suggest a
simpler and more practical explanation. When designing a lute the
most important features are the string length and the length of the
neck. In the case of these small 'liuti attiorbati' a short string length was
used (whether on account of a high pitch we cannot tell) and a neck
with ten fret spaces was deemed necessary. This immediately gave
rise to a short body length. Since the instrument was to have thirteen
or fourteen courses a long bridge was necessary (this measurement
obviously must remain fairly constant regardless of the string length
of the particular instrument) and in order that the ends of the bridge
should not be too near the edge of the soundboard, thus marring the
bass response of the instrument, a wide body was needed. Hence the
round shape with which a flattened back was necessary to cut down
the volume of air in the body. Without this last feature it would be
very difficult to produce any clarity in the sound of the instrument.

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 We probably owe the survival of several of these lutes in an un-
altered state to their unsuitability for conversion to anything which
was played at a later stage in the history of the lute. One example
which was converted almost seems to prove the point. A small lute
by Koch49 was altered by Leopold Widhalm in 1757 into a theorbo,
and in order to achieve a string length suitable for such an instrument of
that period a neck with thirteen clear fret spaces was substituted, result-
ing in an instrument of absurd proportions.
Such, I think, was the 17th-century Italian lute. The main problem
still remaining is to discover the precise nature of the 'arciliuto' which
name grows more common as the 17th century progresses.50 If my
theory concerning the use of the word 'lute' is correct then it ought
to be an instrument having its two top courses tuned as with the
normal lute, and not lowered as with the theorbo. This is supported
by the Talbot Manuscript51 where are given the measurements of an
arciliuto. It is quite a large instrument with a string length of 68.5 cm.,
and diapasons of 152.5 cm. of which there are seven in number, all
single. It might appear to be, at first sight, what we normally call
today a 'chitarrone' but of the six courses on the fingerboard the top
course is a single string and the tuning is contrasted with that of the
theorbo which has its top two courses lowered. It is well known
that in the earlier part of the I7th century the names 'tiorba' and
'chitarrone' seem to have been interchangeable. Whatever the precise
nature of the arciliuto I think we can assume it to have been tuned like
an ordinary lute (whatever its actual pitch may have been) and there is
no doubt that it was a common continuo instrument at the end of
the 17th century and even into the i8th century. Its name seems to
supplant that of chitarrone on title pages and even appears more
frequently than 'tiorba', and it is this instrument which is required by
Corelli,52, Carissimi53 and Handel.54

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I should like to express my thanks to the many friends who have been
enough to provide or check references for me; and especially to Fried
Hellwig of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, and
Patrick Corran and Miss Karen Viton for their help with the translat
Italian sources.
NOTES

I F. Hellwig, 'Lute Construction in the Renaissance and th

GSJ XXVII.
2 Hellwig, op. cit. p. 29.
3 Giulio Cesare Barbetta felt it necessary to draw attention t
courses on the title page of his Novae Tabulae musicae Testudinari

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et Heptachordae, Strassburg, 1582. Seven course lutes were known earlier; vid.
Sebastian Virdung, Musica getutscht, 15II, fol. j2v; Hans Gerle, Musica Teusch,
1532, fol. qI-q2v. and a reference in the Discours non plus melancholique, Paris,
1557.

4 D. Abbott and E. Segerman, 'Strings in the I6th and 17th Centuries',

GSJ XXVII.
5 William Barley, A new Booke of Tabliture, London, 1596.
6 Thomas Robinson, The Schoole of Musick, London, 1603.
7 Mary Burwell Lute Tutor. Facsimile reprint by Boethius Press 1974.
Chap. 3 fol. 6: 'It is easy to find by this discourse that the ffrench are in posses-
sion of the Lute that is there Instrument ...'.
8 Niirnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum (G.N.M.), MI44. Labelled:
IN PADOVA, Michielle Harton / 16o2.
9 Not included in the catalogue.
io E.g. a large chitarrone, Donaldson Collection, Royal College of Music,
London (RCM 26). Labelled: I6o8 / Magno dieffopruchar a venetia. The back is
of 5I ribs of snakewood with ivory fillet strips.
Ii An exception being an eight-course lute by Magno Tieffenbrucker.
Museo Bardini, Florence (I44). Labelled: Magno dieffopruchar a venetia / 16o9.
12 Thomas Robinson, op. cit. fol. Cii.
13 Thomas Mace, Musick's Monument, 1676, p. 41.
14 Bologna, Museo Civico (No. 12) by Magnus Stegher, Venice. vid. A. C.
Baines, European and American Musical Instruments, Pls. 166, 167.
15 Robert Dowland, Varietie of Lute-lessons, London, 16Io, fol. D2.
16 Most of the lutes by such makers as Hartung, the Tieffenbruckers and
Venere have nine fret-spaces on the neck. It is perhaps necessary here to explain
my preference for the term 'fret-spaces'. To say that a lute neck has on it eight
frets gives us little information as to the length of the neck; e.g. most eleven-
course lutes of the second half of the 17th century had nine frets on the neck,
but there was nearly always room to tie the tenth if this had been required-it
seldom was and seems not to have been used.
I7J. B. Besard, Isagoge in artem testudinarium, Augsburg 1617. Titlepage.
I8 National Gallery, London (Inv. no. 6347), 'A man playing a lute',
signed H. T. Brugghen . fecit . 1624.
19 E.g. G.N.M. (MI 54) by Laux Maler; Vienna, Sammlung alter Musik-
instrumente, 29/C33 and 30/C34; and Warwick County Museum by Hans
Frei.
20o Hellwig, op. cit. p. 24.
21 A. Piccinini, Intavolatura di Liuto e di Chitarrone, Libro Primo, Bologna,
1623, p. 5, Cap. XXVIII, Dell' Origine del Chitarrone, & della Pandora:
'Gia molti anni sono che in Bologna, si facevano liuti di bonta molto eccelenti
6 fosse l'esser fatti di forma lunga a similitudine di pera, 6 fosse l'haver le coste
larghe, che l'uno fa dolce, e l'altro armonioso; basta che, per la lor bonta
erano molto stimati, & in particolare da i francesi, i quali son venuti ' posta
a Bologna, per portarne in Francia pagandoli tutto quello che era loro

domandato, talche pochissimi hora sens trovano;.. .

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 22zz Jonckbloet & Land, Correspondence et Oevres Musicales de Constantin
Huygens, The Hague, 1882, p. 207.
23 L. Frati, 'Liutisti e Liutai a Bologna', Rivista Musicale Italiana, 1919,
p. 19 ff.
24Jonckbloet & Land, op. cit., p. 207-210.
25 Mary Burwell Lute Tutor, fol. 3, 2nd section.
26 Thomas Mace, op. cit., pp. 41 and 75 and James Talbot's MS. (Christ
Church Library, Music MS. 1187) vid. so-called 'English Lutes'. The section
of this MS. concerned with the members of the lute family has been published
by Michael Prynne, GSJ XIV.
27 Vid. Thomas Mace, op. cit. p. 65 if, for the choosing of gut strings for a
lute of this type and period.
28 For more precise measurements, vid. James Talbot's MS. (Prynne, op. cit.
pp. ss-6.
29 Mary Burwell Lute Tutor, 16th chap. fol. 68. Vid. also Thomas Mace,
op. cit. p. 208, for the problems of bass/treble balance.
3o E.g. 'The Music Lesson' by Frans van Mieris, 1635-81 (Dresden Gemilde-
galerie, Inv. no. 1722). Also, 'Lutenist', by Ferdinand Bol, 16i6-8o (Stockholm
National Museum, No. 1430, signed: F. Bol. f. 1654. And 'Couple making
music', by Gerard ter Borch 1617-81 (Zurich, private collection; vid. S. J.
Gudlaugsson Gerard ter Borch, vol. I p. 242, PI. 82).
31 E.g. by G. ter Borch, dated 1675, de Rothschild collection, Waddesdon
Manor, England (Gudlaugsson, op. cit., vol. I p. 394, P1. 271).
32 Christopher Lowther's Lute Book, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
(MS. 31.H.28), vid. article by Gwilym Beechey, GSJ XXIV.
33 At the back of Introduction to the skill of Musick, 1664 edn.: 'There is a late
invention of Strings for the Basses of Viols and Violins, or Lutes, which sound
much better and lowder than the common Gut Strings, either under the Bow
or Finger. It is SmallWire twisted or gimp'd upon a gut string or upon silk.
I have made tryal of both, but those upon Silk do hold best and give as good
a sound . .'.
34 Except, apparently, in England which, as usual, was a little slow in
adopting the latest developments. Thomas Mace is concerned solely with the
double-headed lute and makes no mention of wound strings.
35 Mus&e du Louvre, Paris (RF2469), 'Portrait of Charles Mouton' by
Francois de Troy (1645-1730). An engraving of this work was made by
GCrard Edelinck (164o-i707).
36 Perrine Livre de Musique pour le luth .. ., Paris, 1682, pp. 24-26.
37 This feature is also present in the 'French lutes' described and measured
by James Talbot (Prynne, op. cit. pp. 53-4).
38 Jonckbloet & Land, op. cit. p. 208. The two-headed lutes described by
Mace (op. cit. p. 52) andJames Talbot all have eight courses in the main pegbox.
39 Thomas Mace, op. cit. p. I82, chap. XXXVIII.
4o A. C. Baines, 'James Talbot's Manuscript', GSJ I, p. Io.
41 Bernardo Gianoncelli, II Liuto di Bernardo Gianoncelli detto il Bernadello',
Venice, i65o.

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 42 An exception to this is an instrument by Mateo Sellas, Mus6e Instru-
mental, Brussels (No. I565) which has a triple-headed pegbox (vid. Baines,
European and American Musical Instruments, Pl. 186). This lute must be a strong
contender for the tide of the most unattractive lute ever made.
43 Vid. A. Piccinini, op. cit. capitolo XXVIII--'Dell'Origine del Chitarrone,
& della Pandora'. Also Mace, op. cit. p. 208.
44 A. Mendel, 'On the pitches in use in Bach's time, II', M.Q., XLI 1955.
Reprinted in 'Studies in the history of musical pitch', Amsterdam 1968, p. 222
footnote 79--a communication from A. C. Baines.
45 Vid. e.g. the publications of Pietro Paulo Melli, Intabolatura di Liuto
attiorbato, Libro secondo, Venice 1614, etc. For a lute of this type: Victoria and
Albert Museum, London (Cat. No. 7/5), labelled: Christofolo Choc / Al Aquila
Doro / in Venetia. It is true that these small lutes may on occasion have been

tuned as theorbos, i.e. with their top two courses lowered. In such cages they
would have stood in a very high pitch and may well have been, on these
occasions, the instruments which Bellerophon Castaldi had in mind when he
published his Capricci a due stromenti cio6 tiorba e tiorbino . . ., Modena, 1622.
The tiorbino is tuned an octave higher than the theorbo.
46 Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger shows in the instructions to his Libro
quarto d'Intavolatura di Chitarrone, Rome, 1640, that the tuning of the chitarrone
and tiorba is identical. Pietro Paulo Melli's 5th book published in 1620,
Intabolatura di liuto attiorbato e di tiorba, has music for both lute and theorbo
which shows clearly the difference in tuning.
47 F. Hellwig, op. cit. pp. 23-4.
48 E.g. Chitarrone by Pietro Railich, Padua (Brussels, No. 1562); Chitarrone
by ChristoffKoch, Venice, 1650 (Berlin, Staatliches Institut fiir Musikforschung,
No. 3581); Theorbo by Matteo Sellas, Venice, 1640 (Paris, Mus6e du Con-
servatoire, E.548 C231).
49 Niirnberg, G.N.M. (MI 55), labelled: Christoffolo Hoch Lauter alla insegna /
all' aquila doro in Venetia /c. I6501. Leopold Widhalm, Lauten- und Gei- / genmacher
in Niirnbergfecit An. 1757.
50o A. Piccinini discusses the invention of the 'arciliuto', op. cit., cap. XXXIIII,
asserting that he was the inventor, and that the type with the elongated neck
(which became the standard form) was his second attempt. The first had had
the bass strings lengthened by means of two separate bridges placed step-wise
behind the main bridge. This was unsuccessful since one could not pluck
those strings near the bridge and so the basses were deficient in tone.
51 Prynne, op. cit. pp. 6o-i.
52 Arcangelo Corelli, 'Sonate a tr6, doi Violini, e Violone 6 Arcileuto, col
Basso per l'organo ... opera Prima'. Angelo Mutii, Rome, 1681.
53 Giacomo Carissimi, 'Oratorio della SSma. Vergine', Opere Complete,
Vol. VIII, ed. L. Bianchi, Rome 1964. 'Violone o Leuto' specified.
54 G. F. Handel, La Ressurezione, 1708. Facsimile reprint by Gregg Press,
p. 33 'arcileuto', p. 36 'teorba'.

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