On the Origin of the Chitarrone - Alton Smith

American Musicological Society

On the Origin of the ChitarroneAuthor(s): Douglas Alton SmithSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Autumn, 1979), pp. 440-462Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831250Accessed: 05/01/2009 08:49

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On the Origin of the Chitarrone

BY DOUGLAS ALTON SMITH

URING THE THOROUGHBASS ERA a variety of instruments were used to provide chordal accompaniment for vocal and instrumental

music. One of the most common of these was the chitarrone, a large lute with an extra octave of diatonically tuned contrabasses on an extended neck, invented towards the end of the sixteenth century. The chitarrone or tiorba, as it was later called, was one of the most important instruments of early monody and opera, and remained a significant thoroughbass instrument all over Europe throughout the entire

baroque. It is prescribed for use in works by the leading practitioners of the seconda prattica -Caccini, Peri, d'India, Cavalieri, Monteverdi, Gagliano-and many other lesser figures, and was still used in Italian church orchestras and German court music ensembles well into the

eighteenth century.' Though the chitarrone has long been recognized as historically

important, and has recently, with the archlute, attracted a good deal of attention,2 there is still some confusion about its nomenclature; and the most fundamental questions of the chitarrone's origin-who invented it, where, when, and why?-have never been satisfactorily answered. For instance, modern scholars commonly interchange the terms chitarrone, theorbo, and archlute in translations of baroque sources. This practice probably stems from Curt Sachs's classification

1 See Henri Quittard, "Le theorbe comme instrument d'accompagnement," Revue musicale mensuelle, VI (I9IO), pp. 221-37 and 362-84; Hans Neemann, "Laute und Theorbe als Generalbassinstrumente im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert," Zeitschriftfiir Mu- sikwissenschaft, XVI (1934), pp. 527-34; Tharald Borgir, "The Performance of the Basso Continuo in Seventeenth-Century Italian Music" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 197 ). I am preparing a study of lute music in the baroque era, which will also describe the role of the chitarrone and archlute as solo and continuo instruments in Italy, France, and Germany.

2 Compare Mirko Caffagni, "Introduzione," in Alessandro Piccinini, Opera, II (Bologna, 1965), pp. vii-xvii; Hans Radke, "Wodurch unterscheiden sich Laute und Theorbe," Acta musicologica, XXXVII (1965), pp. 73-4; Radke, "Theorbierte Laute (Liuto attiorbato) und Erzlaute (Arciliuto)," Die Musikforschung, XXV (1972), pp. 481- 4; Robert Spencer, "Chitarrone, Theorbo and Archlute," Early Music, IV (1976), pp. 407-23.

ON THE ORIGINS OF THE CHITARRONE

of all lutes with long contrabass strings as archlutes,3 which over-

simplifies the actual relationships between these instruments. On the question of origin, even Robert Spencer, who has combed through an enormous amount of source material, can do no more than speculate that "the chitarrone was most probably evolved around 1580 by a member of the Camerata of Florence as a necessary adjunct of the new style of song writing, musica recitativa."4 The present study is an attempt to resolve these questions.

The first mention of the chitarrone occurs in the description by Bas- tiano de' Rossi of the famous six intermezzi performed in Florence during the wedding celebration of Ferdinand I de' Medici and Chris- tine of Lorraine, published immedately after the event in May I589. Describing the appearance of Armonia Doria (sung by the celebrated soprano Vittoria Archilei) in the prelude to the first intermezzo, Rossi writes:

In essa nugola una donna, che se ne ueniua plan piano in terra, sonando un liuto, e cantando, oltre a quel del liuto, ch'ella sonaua, al suono di grauicembali, chitarroni, e arpi, che eran dentro alla Prospettiua, il madrigal sottoscritto.5

In this cloud was a lady, descending slowly towards the earth, playing a lute and singing the madrigal below to the sound of her own lute and of harpsichords, chitarrones, and harps [concealed] behind the scene.

The same scene is also described by Cristofano Malvezzi in the preface to his edition of the music for the intermezzi:

Questo Madrigale cant6 sola Vittoria moglie d'Antonio Archilei, che gra- tissimi seruono il Serenissimo Gran Duca sonando ella un Leuto grosso accompagnata da due Chitarroni so- nati uno dal detto suo marito, e l'altro da Antonio Naldi anch'esso seruitore stipendiato della medesima Altezza.6

This madrigal ["Dalle piu alte sfere"] was sung solo by Vittoria, the wife of Antonio Archilei, both of whom most gratefully serve his serene highness the Grand Duke. She played a large lute and was accompanied by two chitarrones, one played by her husband and the other by Antonio Naldi, also a salaried ser- vant of the same sovereign.

3 Curt Sachs, Handbuch der Instrumentenkunde, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1930), pp. 225-7. 4 Spencer, p. 408. s Bastiano de' Rossi, Descrizione dell'apparato, e degl'intermedi, fatti per la commedia

rappresentata in Firenze. Nelle nozze de' Serenissimi Don Ferdinando Medici, e di Madama Cristina di Loreno, Gran Duchi di Toscana (Florence, 1589), p. 8.

6 Cristofano Malvezzi, Intermedii et concerti, fatti per la commedia rappresentata in Firenze nelle nozze del serenissimo Don Ferdinando Medici, e Madama Christiana di Lorena,

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JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Efforts to find an earlier reference to the chitarrone in documents and published treatises of the Florentine circle and related ones of the period have been unsuccessful. It is not mentioned, for instance, in the Dialogo (1581) of Vincenzo Galilei,7 although Galilei discusses contemporary musical instruments such as the lute, harp, cittern, flute, viola da gamba, and viola da braccio. Nor does Galilei refer to it in his Fronimo of I584. Several letters of Alessandro Striggio, written in 1584, contain references to the latest musical practice (in Ferrara, where he was visiting) and to Giulio Caccini, later one of the chitarrone's foremost proponents, but none to the chitarrone. For instance, Striggio writes on 29 July 1584: "Signor Giulio will be able to play either lute or harpsichord very well from the bass."8 Bastiano de' Rossi does not mention the chitarrone in his description of the Florentine nuptial festivities for Virginia de' Medici and Cesare d'Este in Febru- ary of 1586. Six intermezzi similar to the ones performed in 1589 were composed and performed, also under the direction of Giovanni de' Bardi, for the I586 wedding celebration. Stringed instruments, including lutes, harps, viols, and harpsichords were extensively used in the I586 intermezzi, especially to accompany solo singing. In the first intermezzo, for instance, Mercury sang a solo "to the sound of viols, lutes, harpsichords, and organo di legno."9 In the third, Flora sang "to the sound of a lute and a harp" and was answered by her husband Zeffiro "to the sound of the same instruments."10

If the chitarrone had been known in Florence in 1586, it seems probable that it would have been used in these intermezzi. Judging from the extent of its use in the intermezzi three years later, its absence here is conspicuous. I suggest that the instrument was invented at some time between the appearance of Rossi's two Descrizioni: Febru- ary 1586 and May I589. Indeed, for reasons that will become clearer below, it appears likely that the chitarrone was first conceived and built in late 15 88 or early 5 89 especially for the Florentine intermezzi of I589.

gran duchi di Toscana (Venice, I59 ), cited in Musique des intermedes de "La pellegrina," ed. D. P. Walker (Paris, 1963), p. xxxvii.

7 Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna (Florence, I58 ). 8 Riccardo Gandolfi, "Lettere inedite scritte da musicisti e letterati, appartenenti

alla seconda meta del secolo XVI. .. ," Rivista musicale italiana, XX (1913), p. 530. 9 Bastiano de' Rossi, Descrizione del magnificentiss. apparato. e de' maravigliosi inter-

medifatti per la commedia rappresentata in Firenze nellefelicissime nozze degl' illustrissimi, ed eccellentissimi signori il signor Don Cesare d' Este, e la signora Donna Virginia Medici (Flor- ence, 1585), fol. 6V. In the Florentine calendar of this period the new year began on 25 March; hence the apparent discrepancy between the dates of Rossi's publication and of the wedding.

10 Ibid., fol. 15V.

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It seems certain that the chitarrone was intended to serve in the 1589 intermezzi in the role of the ancient cithara. The dramatic themes of the intermezzi were all drawn from classical antiquity. The Florentines were well aware that the ancient Greeks accompanied singing with lyres and citharas, and the surviving costume sketches for the intermezzi drawn by Bernardo Buontalenti show the musicians

holding fanciful replicas of just such instruments. 1 In the fifth intermezzo, for instance, which represented the tale of "Arion Citaredo,"'2 Malvezzi reports that the modern Arion was accompanied by a chitarrone:

Questo Ecco fu cantato da Jacopo This echo was sung by Jacopo Peri, Peri detto il Zazzarino con maravig- called il Zazzarino, with marvelous liosa arte sopra del chitarrone, & con art to the chitarrone, and to the rapt mirabile attentione de gli ascol- attention of the audience. tanti. 13

One or two chitarrones participated in the accompaniment of more than half of the numbers in the six intermezzi, including all of those for canto solo, which were those in the most modern, ostensibly ancient

style. In two of these, Peri's solo and that of the castrato Honofrio Gualfreducci in the sixth intermezzo, it was the only instrument of

accompaniment. 14

There is still further reason to associate the chitarrone with the Florentine preoccupation with ancient music. Although Galilei's man- ifesto of 158I does not mention the chitarrone, it contains an extended discussion of the ancient cithara and its stringing and use by Greek musicians. Culling his information from Boethius (and of course his

original inspiration from Girolamo Mei15), Galilei traces the development of the cithara from a small, four-stringed instrument invented

by Mercury to a large instrument with an ultimate configuration of 11 Aby Warburg, "I costumi teatrali per gli intermezzi del 1589," in his Gesam-

melte Schriften, Vol. I, ed. Gertrude Bing (Leipzig and Berlin, 1932), illustrations 80 (facing p. 267) and 92 (facing p. 410). The latter, the drawing of Jacopo Peri as Arion, is also reproduced on the cover of Claude Palisca, Baroque Music (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968).

12 Rossi, Descrizione (1589), p. 57. 13 Malvezzi, p. [fifty]. 14 See Malvezzi, pp. xxxvii-lvi or Emil Vogel, Bibliothek dergedruckten weltlichen

Vokalmusik Italiens, Vol. I, reprint (Hildesheim, 1962), pp. 383-5, for partial lists of the musicians and instruments that participated in the six intermezzi. Howard Mayer Brown, Sixteenth-Century Instrumentation: The Music of the Florentine Intermedii ([Rome,] 1973), lists all instruments known to have been used.

15 See Claude Palisca, "Girolamo Mei: Mentor to the Florentine Camerata," The Musical Quarterly, XL (1954), pp. I-20.

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fifteen strings. For most of the various tunings Galilei gives charts, which show the instrument in all its stages to have been tuned diatonically or, in Galilei's and ancient Greek terms, in superimposed, inter- locking tetrachords. The large cithara in its final stage of development was tuned thus:16

a' g'f e' d' c' bagfedcB A

The tuning of this instrument, if transposed down one octave, is related to the tuning of the chitarrone. The fingerboard strings of the chitarrone are tuned like those of the descant Renaissance lute-but with the first two courses an octave lower than lute pitch because of the chitarrone's long string scale -and the seven or eight contrabasses are tuned diatonically:17

aa ee bb gg dd AA G F E D C B' A' (G')

It is significant that these contrabasses are single instead of double, as are all basses on late Renaissance and baroque lutes. This character- istic and the diatonic tuning represent departures from the lute tuning of the time18 and make likely the influence of the cithara. The inven-

16 Robert Henry Herman, "Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna of Vin- cenzo Galilei: Translation and Commentary" (Ph.D. diss., North Texas State Uni- versity, 1973), p. 728.

17 Renaissance lutes were built in a multiplicity of sizes, with commensurate variety in pitch. Michael Praetorius, in De organographia (Wolfenbiittel, 1619; facsm. ed., Kassel and Basel, 1963), p. 51 lists seven sizes, whose first strings were tuned tod" (or c"), b', a', g', e', d', andg. The chitarrone's tuning of the fingerboard strings is obviously based upon the lute's, though it cannot be conclusively shown that the influence of Galilei's cithara was the factor that led to the selection of the A lute tuning as the basis for that of the chitarrone. A few German and English baroque sources-Prae- torius is the earliest-give a G tuning for the chitarrone (they all use the term "The- orbe" or "theorbo"); otherwise the A tuning is the standard one. The most common configuration of strings on surviving chitarrones of the early i7th century is six double courses and eight single contrabasses, but more or less courses are not uncommon.

18 The long, thin, single-strung contrabasses on a chitarrone produce a sharper, more penetrating sound by comparison with its shorter fingerboard strings, or with the double-strung basses of a lute, and hence create two different sonorities on the instrument. Perhaps to reduce the disparity in sound between fingerboard and contrabass courses, many 17th-century Italian archlutes and late-i7th- and 18th-century German theorboes have double-strung contrabasses. With regard to tuning, the six- course lute was standard for almost the entire i6th century, though a seventh course is mentioned by Sebastian Virdung (1 51 ) and Hans Judenkunig ( 523). After about 1560 a seventh course tuned either a whole tone or a fourth below the sixth course began to appear frequently in Continental tablatures. The earliest instance of an eighth course in published lute tablatures is in 1585 (in Michele Carrara's Regoleferma e

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tor, clearly a lutenist, obviously wished to consider himself a cith- aroedist19 by converting his instrument into a modern version of the cithara but without sacrificing the essential lute tuning of the fingerboard strings to which he was accustomed.

Though it may seem implausible today that the Florentines could have created a new instrument under the guise of reviving an ancient one, Galilei's Dialogo offers evidence that such an association was by no means unusual. He writes of the harp: "Among the stringed instruments which are in use today in Italy, there is first of all the harp, which is none other than an ancient cithara with many strings, although somewhat different in form."20 Of the cittern: "It was called cetera by its inventors, perhaps in order to revive the ancient cithara."21 He also mentions "the viola da braccio, called lyre not too many years ago in imitation of the ancient [one] with regard to name."22

These designations for instruments, of course, grew out of the hu- manist atmosphere that dominated Italian Renaissance culture. For another musical parallel from the same circle, one need only think of the manner in which the discussions of Greek theater by the Floren- tine Camerata gave rise to the genre of opera. Spencer was the first to suggest that the chitarrone was named after the cithara.23 The term chitarrone ("large cithara") could have been chosen because the new instrument represented the largest version of the old one, and/or because the chitarrone itself was quite large, and doubtless also to distin- guish it from the cittern and the guitar (the latter was called chitarra or chitarrino).

vera); Antoine Francisque's Le Tresor d' Orphee (Paris, 1600) is the first publication to require a ninth course. As Radke has pointed out, the tuning of these low courses usually contains a skip and is not generally completely diatonic until the appearance of music for ten- and eleven-course lute in the second decade of the 17th century. See Hans Radke, "Beitrage zur Erforschung der Lautentabulaturen des i6.-i8. Jahrhun- derts," Die Musikforschung, XVI (1963), pp. 34-51.

19 The "citharoedist" (citharedo), who sang and accompanied himself on the cithara, is distinguished by Galilei from the "citharist" (citharista), who played solo instrumental music. The citharoedist was honored more than the instrumental soloist. See Herman, p. 603.

20 Herman, p. 885. 21 Herman, p. 916, used the term "zither" for cetera, which is a mistranslation. 22 Herman, p. 918. Galilei is of course referring to the lira da braccio. 23 Robert Spencer, "The Chitarrone Francese," Early Music, IV (1976), p. i66:

"Concerning the etymology of 'chitarrone,' I assume the i6th- and 7th-century Ital- ians meant a large Kithara, since the singers with their accompanying chitarroni were intentionally imitating what they thought was the declamatory style of the ancient Greek poets."

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II

The inventor of the chitarrone is identified by Mersenne and Doni24 as Antonio Naldi (often referred to by his nickname il Bardella), a lutenist employed at the Medici court and, as is shown by Malvezzi's account, one of the musicians who participated in the 1589 intermezzi. But both writers are too far removed in time from the actual event to be completely trustworthy. Some modern writers25 cite Cac- cini as giving Naldi credit for the instrument's invention in the preface to Le nuove musiche, but actually Caccini simply says that Naldi invented the best "parti di mezzo"-the inner voices of accompaniment on the chitarrone.26

Fortunately there is another old source, overlooked by investiga- tors of the chitarrone's history, that conclusively identifies the inventor. The Archivio di Stato in Modena contains a letter dated 31 Octo- ber I592 from Emilio de' Cavalieri to Luzzasco Luzzaschi, in which Cavalieri speaks of a recent visit to Ferrara by Giulio Caccini.27 Late that same month Caccini had returned to Florence from a visit to the d'Este court, where he had heard the famous singing ladies and performed for the court himself. After lengthy praise for the quality of

music-making in Ferrara and comment on a new type of organ he had

developed, Cavalieri writes:

24 Marin Mersenne, Harmonie universelle, trans. Roger Chapman (The Hague, 1957), p. 73. In a list of printing errors in his book (published at Paris in 1637), Mersenne wrote: "I have called the second figure on the right [an illustration of an eleven-course archlute having a single first string and ten pairs] a Theorbo [Tuorbe], which the Italians call 'Arciliuto,' and which ought rather to be called a lute with double neck, because aside from the fact that the Theorbo is much larger, it has only one string to each course, and it was about thirty or forty years ago that Bardella invented it at Florence."

Giovanni Battista Doni, Lyra barberina, II (Florence, 1763), pp. 23-4. "Era in quel tempo nella Camerata del Sig. Giovanni [Bardi], Giulio Caccini Romano di [eta giovenile; ma leggiadro Cantore, e spiritoso, il quale] sentendosi inclinato a tal forte di Musica, molto vi si affatic6; componendo, e cantando molte cose al suono di un in- strumento solo, che perlopii era una Tiorba, trovata in quei medesimi tempi in Firenze da . . . [sic: 14 dots] detto il Bardella." Mersenne refers several times in his book to personal correspondence with Doni, who may therefore have been the source of his information.

25 Georg Kinsky, "Alessandro Piccinini und sein Arciliuto," Acta musicologica, X (1938), p. I05; Ernst Pohlmann, Laute Theorbe Chitarrone, 4th ed. (Bremen, 1975), p. 290.

26 See the translation of Caccini's preface in Giulio Caccini, Le nuove musiche, ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock (Madison, 1970). Hitchcock's translation is for the most part very accurate, though unfortunately he changes the name of the instrument (that is, "chitarrone" is translated as "archlute").

27 Modena, Archivio Estense, Musica Busta seconda (Sonatori e Cantori).

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Mi [ha] anche detto che a S:A: ha sa- He [Caccini] also told me that his disfatto molto il suo Chitarone, et il highness [Alfonso II d'Este] was very modo de la Cordatura, del quale satisfied with his chitarrone and the S:A: ne ha voluto il ritratto et vera- mode of tuning, of which his high- mente se V.S. sentisse Antonio Nal- ness wanted the drawing. And truly di detto il Bardella musico di questa if you could hear Antonio Naldi, A:, il quale lui lo hA inventato, et lo called il Bardella, a musician of his suona in tutta ecc.za crederei che so- highness's here, who invented it and disfacesse infinita.te a V.S., et parti- plays it excellently, I believe you co.te per cantarvi sopra.28 would be infinitely satisfied, particu-

larly when it accompanies singing.

Cavalieri had been brought from Rome to Florence by Grand Duke Ferdinand in September 1588, to assume the "superintendence of all church and chamber music, for voices as well as instruments of all kinds,"29 and to supervise the musical and theatrical activities for the wedding. Since he was thus Naldi's superior and must have been one of the first to see and hear the new instrument played, his word can hardly be doubted.

Cavalieri's letter not only firmly identifies Naldi as the inventor of the chitarrone, it also helps clarify the date of invention and the phys- ical appearance of the instrument. From the nature of Cavalieri's remarks, the chitarrone was obviously still a novelty in 1592 and was

previously unknown, or at least unseen, in Ferrara. This lends cre- dence to the hypothesis advanced above that the chitarrone was invented in 1589 or shortly before. Furthermore, the letter reveals that the tuning or stringing (cordatura) made the chitarrone very distinct from the lute in appearance, otherwise Duke Alfonso would not have desired a drawing of it. This fact is important because there is another claimant for the honor to have at least indirectly invented the chitarrone's neck extension and contrabasses: the lutenist Alessandro Picci- nini.

28 The letter was first published by Henry Prunieres, "Une lettre inedite d'Emilio del Cavaliere," La revue musicale, IV (I923), pp. 128-33. I am grateful to Dr. Mirko Caffagni, Modena, for calling my attention to this letter, and for his transcription from the original. Prunieres modified orthography and punctuation at several points; it is here given as in the original. Part of the letter, with several deletions of text (including the paragraph about the chitarrone), is printed in the introduction to Luz- zasco Luzzaschi, Madrigali, ed. Adriano Cavicchi, Monumenta di musica italiana, Ser. II, Vol. II (Kassel, 1965), p. I8.

29 Ulderico Rolandi, "Emilio de' Cavalieri, il Granduca Ferdinando, e l'Inferigno," Rivista musicale italiana, XXXVI (I929), p. 29.

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III

Alessandro Piccinini (1566-c. 1638) is listed together with his father and two brothers-all of them lutenists-on the rolls of the court musicians in Ferrara from December I582 until the dissolution of the court in I597.30 Piccinini later settled in Bologna, where his In- tavolatura di Liuto, et di chitarrone: Libro primo was published in I623.31 In the introduction to this collection of pieces for arciliuto and chitarrone are two brief chapters that pertain to the present subject. Since these sections have not previously been published in English translation,32 and because they have ramifications for the present topic beyond Piccinini's claims, they are given in full below.

Dell'Arciliuto, e dell'Innentore [sic] d'esso, Cap. XXXIIII.

Doue ho nominato il Liuto, ho voluto intendere ancor dell'Arciliuto per non dire, come molti dicono, Liuto Attiorbato, come se l'inuentione fosse cauata dalla Tiorba, a Chitarrone, per dir meglio, il che e falso, e lo so io, come quello, che sono stato l'Inuentore di questi Arciliuti: anzi hauend'io fatto fare li primi come se detta inueutione [sic] per all'hora fosse poco stimata, per ispatio di due anni non si vide ab- bracciata da nissuno, ne si vedeua alcun simile stromento fuor, che quelli, ch'io faceuo fare. Pure e stata poi vltima perfettione al Liuto, & ha dato vita al Chitarrone.

Et che cio sia vero, si sa, che essendo io l'Anno M.D. LXXXXIIII.

On the Archlute and its Inventor, chapter 34.

Where I mentioned the lute I also wished to imply the arciliuto, not to say liuto attiorbato, as many do, as though it were an invention derived from the tiorba, or more correctly, chitarrone, which is false. I know this because I was the inventor of these arciliuti.33 I even had the first ones made, although this invention was little esteemed at the time and for two years was not adopted by any- one, nor was any similar instrument seen aside from the ones that I had had made. Nonetheless the ultimate perfection of the lute was thus achieved, and it gave life to the chitarrone.

And [to prove] that this is true, let it be known that I, being in 1594

30 Anthony A. Newcomb, "The musica secreta of Ferrara in the I580'S" (Ph.D.

diss., Princeton University, 1970), p. 246. 31 2 vols. (rpt. Bologna, 1962 and I965). 32 Quittard, pp. 223-4, gave a French translation of parts of the second and third

paragraphs of the "Chitarrone" section; Kinsky, pp. 109 and I 14-15, gave a German translation of most of both chapters. Both are omitted in Stanley Buetens, "The In- structions of Alessandro Piccinini,"Journal of the Lute Society of America, II (1969), pp. 6-17.

33 Though it may seem that Piccinini here refers to the chitarrone or tiorba as arciliuti, he actually means just the arciliuto or liuto attiorbato. Chitarrone and tiorba are, to my knowledge, never confused or equated with arciliuto in Italian sources of the first half of the i7th century.

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al seruigio del Serenissimo Duca di Ferrara, andai a Padoua alla Bottega di Christofano Heberle, principa- lissimo Liutaro, & li feci fare per proua vn Liuto di corpo cosi longo, che seruiua per tratta de i contrabassi, & haueua due scanelli molto lontani, vno da l'altro, & riusci di poca voce, perche non si poteuano toccare i contrabassi appresso lo scanello; tal che ne feci far' vn' altro con la Tratta al manico, & riusci buonissimo, poi simile A questo ne feci far tre altri con maggior diligenza e riuscirono isquisiti, i quali tutti portai A Ferrara doue dal Serenissimo mio Signore, & dall'Eccelentissimo Principe di Ve- nosa, che all'hora iui si trouaua fu- rono con grandissimo gusto vditi; e molto lor piacquero quei Bassi cosi sonori, e Sua Altezza ne dono due al sudetto Principe di Venosa, il qual con esso lui li porto alla volta di Na- poli, & ne lascio vno in Roma, che poi capit6 alle mani del Caualier del Liuto, il qual sempre l'adopero gus- tandoli infinitamente tal inuentione; & essendo io A Roma, dopo la morte del Caualier sopradetto, il medesimo Liuto mi ritorno nelle mani.

Quell'altro poi Arciliuto del corpo longo detto di sopra, quand'andai al Seruitio dell'Illustrissimo Cardi- nale Pietro Aldobrandino lo lasciai in Ferrara al Signore Antonio Goretti mio tanto caro amico, il quale ancora lo conserua nel suo celebre Studio di Musica, doue non solamente ha in

in the service of his highness the Duke of Ferrara, went to Padua to the workshop of Christofano He- berle, one of the foremost luthiers, and had him make as an experiment a lute with a body so long that it could serve as an extension for the contrabasses. It had two bridges quite far apart. However, the result- ing instrument had a small sound, since the contrabasses could not be played near the bridge. Thus I had another made with the extension on the neck, and this succeeded very well. Then three others were made in like fashion with more diligence and they were exquisitely successful. I took all of them to Ferrara, where they were heard with great pleasure by his highness my master and by the most excellent Prince of Venosa, who was then there.34 They were delighted by those very sonorous basses. His highness gave two of the lutes to the above-mentioned Prince of Venosa, who took them on his way to Naples, leaving one in Rome, which then came into the hands of the Cavalier of the Lute,3s who al- ways used it, infinitely relishing this invention. When I was in Rome, after the death of the Cavalier, the same lute returned to my hands.

More about the arciliuto with the long body mentioned above: when I came into the service of the most il- lustrious Cardinal Pietro Aldobran- dini I left it in Ferrara with Signor Antonio Goretti, my dear friend, who still has it preserved in his famous Studio di musica.36 In one

34 Carlo Gesualdo, the Prince of Venosa, took Eleonora d'Este as his second wife in Ferrara in early 1594. He remained, with interruptions, in that city until 596. 35 The Cavalier del Liuto, by whom a variety of attractive compositions for solo lute survive, has sometimes been identified as the lutenist Laurencini of Rome, but without the support of documentary evidence.

36 The word studio at this time is synonymous with "university." In this case it refers both to intellectual research and the tools of this research-the library and collection of instruments.

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vna camera ogni sorte di stromenti Antichi, e Moderni tanto da fiato quanto da corde di bellezza, e bonta isquisiti, ma tiene ancora con ordine bellissimo in vn'altra Stanza tutta la Musica Antica, e Moderna, cosi da Camera, come da Chiesa, che sia possibile ritrouarsi.

Dell' Origine del Chitarrone, & della Pandora. Cap. XXVIII.

Gia molti anni sono che in Bo- logna, si faceuano liuti di bonta mol- to eccelenti 6 fosse 1'esser fatti di forma lunga a similitudine di pera, o fosse l'hauer le coste larghe, che l'vno fa dolce, e l'altro armonioso; basta che, per la lor bonta erano molto sti- mati, & in particolare da i francesi, i quali son venuti a posta a Bologna, per portarne in Francia pagandoli tutto quello che era loro domandato, talche pochissimi hora sene trouano;

& oltre di cio si faceuano liuti grandissimi, che in Bologna erano molto apprezzati, per suonare in concerto con altri Liuti piccoli passie- mezi, Arie, & altre simili. E la bonta di questi Liuti cosi grandi si scopriua maggiormente, perche li teneuano al- ti d'accordatura talmente, che la prima corda, non potendo arriuare cosi alta vi posero in vece di quella vn'altra corda grossa accordandola vn'ottaua piu bassa, il che riusciua per quell'effetto benissimo, come hoggidi ancor si vsa.

Doppo alcun tempo, comin- ciando a fiorir il bel cantare parue a quei Virtuosi, che questi Liuti grandi, per esser cosi dolci, fossero molto a proposito d'vno, che canta, per accompagnamento; ma trouandoli mol- to piu bassi del bisogno loro, furno

room he has all sorts of ancient and modern instruments, both winds and strings, of exquisite beauty and quality, and in another place he keeps in wonderful order all the old and new music for chamber and church that one could possibly find.37

On the Origin of the Chitarrone, and of the Pandora. Chapter 28.

Many years ago in Bologna there were made lutes of very excellent quality, either in a long form similar to a pear, or with wide staves [i.e. ribs], so that one lute would play sweetly, the other sonorously. Suf- fice it to say that they were highly esteemed for their quality, particularly by the French, who came to Bologna expressly to take them back to France, paying any price that was asked, so that now few are found.

In addition, very large lutes, much appreciated in Bologna, were made, to play passamezzos, arias and similar pieces in ensemble together with other, small lutes. The quality of these large lutes revealed itself all the more when the tuning was raised to a point where the first string, un- able to be tuned so high, was replaced with another, thick string tuned an octave lower. This succeeded with such good effect that it is still done today.

After some time, when il bel cantare began to flourish, it seemed to these virtuosi that these large lutes, being so sweet, would be very appropriate for accompanying a singer. But finding them tuned much too low for their needs, they had to

37 A final paragraph, omitted here, contains remarks on the publication of Picci- nini's volume.

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necessitati fornirli di corde piu sottili tirandoli in tuono commodo alla voce. E perche le seconde non poteuano arriuare con l'essempio dell'altra corda le accordono vn'ottaua piu bassa; & cosi hebbero il loro intento e questo fu il principio della Tiorba, 6 vero Chitarrone; e di poco tempo inanzi ch'io facessi fare la tratta a i contrabassi, era venuto a Ferrara, il Signor giulio Caccini, det- to il Romano huomo Eccelentissimo nel bel cantare chiamato da quelle Altezze Sereniss. il quale haueua vn Chitarrone d'Auorio accomodato in quella maniera medesima ch'io ho detto di sopra, della qualle si seruiua, per accompagnamento della voce; fuori poi dell'occasione del cantare nissuno suonaua di Chitarrone, ma quando io feci poi fare la tratta alli contrabassi, molti Virtuosi in- uaghendosi di quella armonia e com- moda varieta di corde, cominciorno a cercar maniera (non ostante l'imperfettione, che apportaua loro quella prima, e seconda corda vn'ottaua bassa accordate) di dilet- tare ancora col suono solo; nelche es- sercitandosi alcuni in poco tempo riuscirono molto Eccelenti; e quindi il Chitarrone comincio il suo grido.

furnish them with thinner strings and tune them up to a pitch comfort- able for the voice. Since the second [strings] could not be tuned so high, they were tuned down an octave just like the first. Thus they accom- plished their aim, and this was the origin of the tiorba, or chitarrone. A little while before I had the extension made for the contrabasses, there came to Ferrara Signor Giulio Caccini, called II Romano, an excellent practitioner of bel cantare, sent for by their serene highnesses [Al- fonso and Margherita d'Este]. He had an ivory chitarrone arranged in the same manner as I have described above, which served to accompany his voice. Except for the purpose of [accompanying] singing, nobody played the chitarrone. But when I had the extension made for the contrabasses, many virtuosi, taking a liking to this harmonious and convenient variety of strings, began to find a way (in spite of the imperfection produced by the tuning down an octave of the first and second courses) of giving pleasure with solo playing as well. After that, some people began to practice in this way [solo], and thus the chitarrone began to be popular.38

Several of Piccinini's points can be substantiated by other sources. As shown above, Caccini indeed came to Ferrara a few years before

38 A final part of this section that does not directly pertain to the present topic is given here for the sake of completeness. "I say likewise that the chitarrone equipped with metal strings, as is customary particularly in Bologna, has a very sweet sonority and brings pleasing new sounds to the ears. I have now removed some imperfections and found a new way to make these instruments that vastly improves their quality: I have replaced the fifth and sixth strings and the contrabasses with silver wire, and each contrabass on the long and short extension conforms to need [i.e., the extension is slanted so that the contrabass string lengths are graded according to pitch]. I have [thus] increased the sound [armonia] extraordinarily. They call this instrument thus equipped thepandora. Even though it is not too large, which makes it convenient [to handle and play], nonetheless it holds the sound very long and is sufficiently deep [profondo] to accompany a singing voice, which is a rare thing. And it holds the tuning very well." (A final sentence provides a transition back to the practical instructions.)

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Piccinini's ostensible new invention was made, and demonstrated his chitarrone. Also, Piccinini did make a trip to Padua to have a new lute made with an elongated body, and this curious instrument survives today in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.39 Kinsky has traced its history from the maker's workshop and sub-

sequent storage in Goretti's studio to its sale in about I66o to Arch- duke Carl Ferdinand of Tyrol in Innsbruck, whence it came to the Viennese museum in the nineteenth century.40 Furthermore a letter written on 31 January I595 by Piccinini to Duke Alfonso reports the progress of building new lutes with long bodies.

Essendo arivato in Padua alli venti- cinque del presente subito ordinai i lauti, et ancora che gli mastri si siano mostrati alquanto dificultosi in far lauti novi per questi tenpi [sic] freddi non mancheranno pero di far il meglio che potranno, e certo se io non gli fossi in proprio fatto a ordinarli come voglio non farebbeno cosa buona, e gli pare un lauto molto stravagante pero sper si farA qualche cosa di buono, ancora che io non ho trovato fondi longhi come desiderava che vengono di alemagna cosi fatti bi- sogna adunque far al meglio che si potra per hora mi dispiace solo che il Sigr Prencipe non sara servito di ha- vere al suo lauto quela goba perche bi- sognarebbe far una forma nova il che sarebbe con longhezza di tempo et contro la loro opinione la quale si e che niente di utilita debba aportavi detta gobba ma avemo trovato dele forme piu apropriate et credo riusci- ranno et hafio gia dato bonissimo principio e staro adonque aspettando ottimo fine .. .41

Having arrived in Padua on the twenty-fifth of the present [month] I immediately ordered the lutes. Even though the luthiers have made strong objections to building new lutes in this cold season they will nonetheless do the best they can. It is certain that if I had not gone to supervise them they would not have done a good job, since [such] a lute seems very eccentric to them. However I hope that something good will come of this, in spite of the fact that I could not find, as I desired, such long bel- lies that come from Germany. For now one must do the best one can. I am only sorry that the prince will not be gratified by having this hump on his lute,42 because it [would] be necessary to make a new mold, which would take considerable time, and [would be] contrary to their opinion that nothing useful will be gained by the addition of this hump. But we have found more appropriate molds [for the long lute], and I believe they will succeed, and they have already made a very good start

39 Julius Schlosser, Die Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente (Vienna, 1920), p. 56 (no. A. 46) and plate 7.

40 Kinsky, pp. I 10-12. 41 Luigi-Francesco Valdrighi, Nomocheliurgografia antica e moderna . . . (Modena,

1884; reprt. Bologna), I967, p. 272. 42 The exact nature of the hump (gobba) that the prince (Duke Alfonso) wished to

have built on his lute cannot be determined from this evidence. See Caffagni, p. xv, Fig. 2a, for a possible interpretation.

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From this correspondence it can be seen that Piccinini made the

trip to Padua in 1595, not I594 as he later recalled,43 and that the luthiers foresaw the ultimate failure of the long-bodied lute. The label in the long lute now in Vienna reads "PADOVA I595 Vvendelio Venere," and on the edge of the neck and the base of the body are found the brand "W.T." (Wendelin Tieffenbrucker?).44 Thus Picci- nini also erred about the identity of the lute maker, unless Heberle, who is otherwise unknown, was an employee in the Venere work-

shop. There are more serious inconsistencies in Piccinini's account and

in his claim to have invented the neck extension. He reports that Cac- cini had had a chitarrone earlier, but implies that it was merely a large lute with its strings tuned up to normal lute pitch and with its first two courses tuned down an octave lower than on a small lute. He mentions no contrabasses. Spencer accepts this explanation.45 Yet the desire of Duke Alfonso to have a drawing of Caccini's new cordatura cannot possibly have been prompted solely by thicker strings on the first two courses; the instrument must have looked quite different from a large lute. Large lutes themselves were nothing new in the i590s. They are listed in the Raymund Fugger instrument inventory of I56646 and in the luthier Lucas Maler's estate list of 1552,47 and are called for in the

43 A further correspondence, from Giacomo Alvise Cornaro to Duke Alfonso, dated Padua, 3 March 1595, also mentions Piccinini's expedition. "Upon the return of Mess: Alessandro your serene highness will see the work that has been done on the lutes, which seem to have turned out well, which I hope will satisfy you." See Luigi- Francesco Valdrighi, Musurgiana (Modena, 1886; reprt. Bologna, 1970), pp. 27-8.

44 Schlosser, p. 56. 45 Spencer speculates that Caccini's chitarrone had short contrabasses of the sort

depicted in two different paintings of lutenists by the I7th-century artist Jan Mole- naer. ("Chitarrone, Theorbo and Archlute," p. 408.) It is unlikely that this instrument would have been called a chitarrone, however, since an instrument of this kind, though extremely uncommon, existed at least two decades before Naldi's invention. A very similar one is shown in the hands of an angel musician in the painting "Maria Maddalena portata in cielo" by Taddeo Zuccaro ( 529-66) in the Galleria Pitti in Florence. It has either five or six courses on the fingerboard (the detail is in- sufficiently clear on the print I was provided with) attached to a normal bent-back pegbox, and eight bass strings, on an extension, that are about one-third longer than the fingerboard strings. Both the chitarrone of Naldi and the arciliuto of Piccinini were therefore preceded by other experiments with long bass strings.

46 Richard Schaal, "Die Musikinstrumenten-Sammlung von Raymund Fugger d.J.," Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft, XXI (1964), pp. 214-15. (An English translation and edition of the inventory will appear in the i980 issue of the Galpin SocietyJournal.) The inventory lists numerous bass and contrabass lutes, in addition to smaller ones.

47 Lodovico Frati, "Liutisti e liutai a Bologna," Rivista musicale italiana, XXVI (1919), pp. I09-I0.

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musical literature as early as i507.48 Moreover, a sharp distinction is maintained between the chitarrone, liutogrosso, and liuto piccolo in Mal- vezzi's description of the 1589 intermezzi49 and in the Ferrarese instrument inventory of i60o,50 to name only two examples.

To accept Piccinini's story is to assume that the instrument Naldi invented was somehow different from the seventeenth-century chitar-

rone, and that the long extension for the contrabasses was added some time after 1595. However, there is currently no evidence for such a "pre-chitarrone," nor is there any evidence that Piccinini's ostensible invention of the neck extension was acknowledged by his contempo- raries. Mersenne's and Doni's identification of Naldi as the inventor of the tiorba or chitarrone leaves no doubt as to whom later generations considered the father of the instrument. The sole invention for which Piccinini is given credit in old sources is the pandora,51 an instrument that was played scarcely more than the long-bodied archlute of 1595. Thus it seems that Piccinini's claim that his invention of the neck extension for the lute "gave life" to the chitarrone must be discounted, in the absence of evidence to support him.

48 The lute music published by Petrucci in 1507 and 1509 often requires tenor and bass lutes (tuned with their first strings at e' and d' respectively). See Benvenuto Disertori, Le frottole per canto e liuto intabulate da Franciscus Bossinensis (Milan, 1964), passim.

49 Malvezzi, p. xlvi, describes the instrumentation of the sinfonia in the fourth intermezzo as follows: "Usciva il concerto della Sinfonia da un'Arpa, sonata da Giulio Caccini, un Chitarrone, due Leuti grossi, due piccoli, .. ."

50 The "Inventari di Strumenti Musicali de' Serenissimi d'Este" taken on 18 De- cember i6oo are printed in Valdrighi, Musurgiana, pp. 387-8. Among other instruments are listed "tre lauti, cioe due grandi e uno piciolo con sue casse," "un lauto miniato con sua cassa fodrata di veluto rosso," and "un chitarone davolio [i.e. d'avorio] bianco, con sua cassa."

51 Vincenzo Giustiniani, in the manuscript Discorso sopra la musica, trans. Carol MacClintock, Musicological Studies and Documents, IX (Rome, 1962), p. 78, wrote: "I will say that Alessandro Piccinino of Bologna was the inventor of the pandora; that is, of a lute made into a theorbo by the addition of many strings in the bass and many in the top, and among them some strings of brass and some of silver." On the following page he continues: "The aforesaid Alessandro Piccinino has recently invented an instrument similar to the plectrum (lyre?) of Apollo, a combination of theorbo, lute, cithara, harp and guitar, which performs marvels; but it will not be used much because of the difficulty of learning to play it with the facility with which he himself played." Probably Giustiniani is twice describing the same instrument that Piccinini himself mentions in 1623 (see above, n. 38). Kinsky (p. 107) suggests that this pandora may be identical to a "Lyra-Cister" in the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum (Schlos- ser, p. 61, no. 66).

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IV

Still another reason to doubt Piccinini's claim is the existence today of a chitarrone in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with the label Mag- no Difobruchar a Venetia 1589.52 (See Fig. i.) Magnus Teiffenbrucker was a member of the renowned German lute-making family that was active in Venice and Padua during the sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth centuries. He is documented between i557 and 162I.53 Chitarrones made by him dated during the early seventeenth

century survive in a variety of museums and private collections and represent some of the finest specimens of the art of lute making. All other chitarrones dated before 1600 known to the present author have either been altered in later generations or are outright fakes.54

While it is unusual for an instrument of the lute family to undergo virtually no alteration in four centuries, the only obvious anachro- nisms on the Boston Tieffenbrucker are the fanciful, heavy bridge and some crude internal barring.55 The workmanship on the shell, belly, and neck is very fine. One often sees in museums "chitarrones" that consist of a fine ivory or shaded yew shell and a crude neck extension, instruments that were obviously altered between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries for sale to uninformed collectors.56 This is cer- tainly not the case with the Boston Tieffenbrucker, for not only is the

52 Nicholas Bessaraboff, Ancient European Musical Instruments (Cambridge, 1941), p. 235 and plate 9.

53 Willibald Leo Freiherr von Liitgendorff, Die Geigen- und Lautenmacher vom Mit- telalter bis zur Gegenwart, II, 4th ed. (Frankfurt/Main, 1922), p. 5 16. There were probably two Magnus Tieffenbruckers, of whom this one was the younger.

54 This includes the instruments attributed to Magnus Tieffenbrucker in the Sam- ling Claudius, Copenhagen, the Stadtmuseum, Munich, and the Castello Sforzesco, Milan.

55 I examined the Tieffenbrucker at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in July 1976. In July 1978 the luthiers Robert Lundberg and Ray Nurse also studied the instrument and graciously provided me with the following analysis: The instrument is unques- tionably authentic, and the only question is whether the neck extension was added in 1589. The body is identical in outline, and in number, width, and shape of ribs to two undated lutes by Magnus Tieffenbrucker now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The neck is quite similar in width and thickness to those of the two Viennese instruments, and the veneer on the extension appears to match that on the neck. The belly is also genuine. It is thus probable that the instrument was built as a chitarrone, though the present state of research on old lutes does not permit a categorical con- clusion.

56 This is the case with the Tieffenbrucker instrument in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan (inventory no. 227), the one by "Petrus Trocta ... 603" (no. 230) in the same museum, an anonymous instrument in the Deutsches Museum, Munich (no. 35252), and many others elsewhere.

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ii

Figure I. Chitarrone by Magnus Tieffenbrucker, Venice, 1589. (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.)

neck well made and tastefully inlaid in the Venetian style of the period, it appears to represent a transitional design that may have preceded the more or less standard form of the neck extension during the seventeenth century.57 The first pegbox, for the fingerboard strings, closely resembles that of a normal seven-course Renaissance lute,

57 Compare, for instance, the undoubtedly genuine chitarrone by Magnus Tief- fenbrucker in Schlosser, plate 7.

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made with nearly equally thin cheeks and an open back rather than with a considerably thicker cheek on the bass end and a closed under- side, as on most later chitarrones. The instrument is also shorter than many early-seventeenth-century chitarrones by the Tieffenbruckers and other German-Italian makers.

Moreover, most seventeenth-century chitarrones have six pairs of

strings on the fingerboard and eight single contrabasses, whereas the Boston instrument has seven pairs on the fingerboard and six single strings on the extension. The six contrabasses would thus descend to A' and correspond exactly by octave transposition to the lower octave of the large cithara described by Vincenzo Galilei. Possibly, then, this was the original stringing of the chitarrone of Naldi.

On the basis of the above considerations, assuming the label to be genuine,58 there is presently no reason to doubt that the Boston Tief- fenbrucker is what it seems to be. I submit that it may thus have been one of the chitarrones used by Naldi, Archilei, and Peri in the Floren- tine intermezzi of 1589.

The inventions of the chitarrone and archlute, then, may be recon- structed as follows. In late I588 or early 1589, Antonio Naldi conceived the chitarrone and commissioned the luthier Magnus Tief- fenbrucker of Venice to make it for the Medici wedding celebration. Doubtless Tieffenbrucker made several exemplars, of which the Bos- ton instrument is the only one to survive today. Quite apart from its striking appearance and its relation to ancient Greek theatrical practice, the instrument had a lasting appeal for lutenists because of its strong, sonorous contrabasses. Such an instrument was taken to Fer- rara by Caccini in 1592, and it probably inspired Duke Alfonso d'Este later to send Piccinini to Padua to order an experimental lute with an extended body instead of an extended neck. Since this instrument was immediately recognized as a failure, Piccinini subsequently ordered lutes with extended necks like the one on Caccini's chitarrone. In his recollection of these events published nearly three decades later, Picci- nini erred about Caccini's instrument, either through poor memory or through vanity.

V

The new invention was first called chitarrone, and the terms tiorba and liuto attiorbato or arciliuto were applied to the same or related in-

58 It is a printed label that closely resembles those by the same maker in the Viennese collection (Schlosser, p. 135) and in the former Heyer collection now in Leipzig (George Kinsky, Musikhistorisches Museum von Wilbelm Heyer in Coin [Cologne, I912], p. 272).

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struments later. The earliest mention of the liuto attiorbato is in the Intavolatura di Liuto attiorbato. Libro secondo of Pietro Paolo Melli (Ven- ice, I614) and the first volume of Claudio Saracini's Le musiche published in the same place and year. Melli's first book of pieces is now lost. As Piccinini has observed, liuto attiorbato is derived from the word tiorba and means a lute that has a neck extension and contrabasses like a theorbo or chitarrone. Piccinini evidently coined the term arciliuto, for it is not documented before I623. Claudio Mon- teverdi, in a letter of 28 December I6O1, used still another term for the lute played by Francesca Caccini: "Before leaving Rome I heard ... in Florence [sic] the daughter of Signor Giulio Romano sing very well and play the leutto chitaronato and the harpsichord."59 All these designations containing the word liuto in the seventeenth century refer to a lute in normal Renaissance tuning with a set of contrabasses on an extended neck. This instrument is necessarily smaller than the chitarrone, since its first two courses are at standard descant or alto lute pitch (a' and e', org' and d'), and many extant examples are

double-strung (in octaves) in the contrabasses instead of single-strung as on the chitarrone.60

The term tiorba has puzzled musical instrument specialists for decades, but with the aid of some documents that have recently come to light a new explanation of its origin can be offered. Robert Spencer finds it first mentioned in John Florio's Italian-English dictionary The Worlde of Wordes (1598) as "a kind of musical instrument used among countrie people," and in a subsequent edition (1611) as "a musical instrument that blind men play upon called a Theorba."61 Spencer concludes "that the instrument was unknown in England at that time (i.e. because a courtly instrument was described as a "countrie" one). However, there is ample evidence that indicates the tiorba was exactly what Florio said it was. A letter from the Ferrarese courtier Leonardo Conosciuti to Cardinal Luigi d'Este on 26 February 1585 describing a public festival in Ferrara reads, in part:

Ne vi fu cosa che potesse piacere al There was nothing there that could popolo, se non quel carro d'Orbi che please the people except the cart of

59 Claudio Monteverdi, Lettere dediche eprefazioni, ed. Domenico de' Paoli (Rome, 1973), p. 52.

60 Several surviving instruments by the Venetian luthier Matteo Sellas would probably have been considered arciliuti. See, for instance, the example of 1637 in Anthony Baines, Victoria and Albert Museum: Catalog of Musical Instruments, Vol. II (London, 1968), figs. 40 and 41, and Kinsky, Musikhistorisches Museum, p. 95.

61 Spencer, p. 411.

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cantavano, ch'and6 anco la matina, su'l quale era Figotto con una Tiorba dinanzi che non havea ne corde, ne cosa che buona fusse se non che vole[v]ano il molinello, et con quel moto, et con le sue zannate facea ridere la Brigata.62

singing blind men, which circulated during the morning as well, and on which was Figotto with a tiorba [hanging] in front of him that had neither strings nor anything else that was good, except that they de- manded the little whirligig [motion], and with that motion and with his jokes he made the brigade [of onlook- ers] laugh.

From this reference and Florio's definitions it seems clear that the term tiorba designated a hurdy-gurdy in Italy in the sixteenth century. Since the fifteenth century the hurdy-gurdy had been associated with blind beggars.63 The tiorba is associated with the humble and the blind both by Florio and Conosciuti, and Conosciuti's reference to a

cranking motion ("il molinello, et con quel moto") appears to indicate a hurdy-gurdy. This interpretation of the term is confirmed by another, previously unpublished document in the Medici archives in Flor- ence. A bill of 8 May 1596 from the organ builder Francesco Palmieri at the Florentine court requests payment for a keyboard instrument

operated by wheels:

II ser.m" gran Duca de[ve] dare lire otanta sono per fattura de un istru- mento in tre pezzi a uso di tiorba da sonare per forza di rote dove vi e stato di molti perdimento di tempo in condurli e rimasti imperfeti fatovi atorno alchune spese e tuto per ser- vitio di S. A. Serma con ordine del sig.re Emilio de Cavalieri quali strumenti uno a uso de spineta senza corde e senza tastatura e due case con cinque ruote per ciaschuno et tute di legname64

His highness the Grand Duke must pay eighty lire for the building of an instrument in three sections in the manner of a tiorba, played by means of wheels. There was much time wasted making them, and they remained imperfect and caused some [extra] expenses, all in the service of his highness upon the order of Sig- nor Emilio de' Cavalieri. The instruments, one in the manner of a spineta [still] without strings and without keyboard and two cases with five wheels for each one, and all in wood.

62 Anthony A. Newcomb, p. 412. I have modified the translation. I am grateful to

Professor Newcomb for furnishing me with the last part of this quotation; the letter will appear as Document 49 in his forthcoming book The Madrigal at Ferrara: 1579- '597.

63 Marianne Brocker, Die Drehleier: lhr Bau und ihre Geschichte, Orpheus: Schriften- reihe zu Grundfragen der Musik, XI (Dusseldorf, I973), pp. 393 ff.

64 The text of this document was graciously provided by Warren Kirkendale, who has permitted me to publish the excerpt here. The complete bill will be included in Professor Kirkendale's Archival Studies on Music, Musicians, and Artists at the Court of Ferdinand I de' Medici (in preparation). The instrument is a "Niirnbergisches Geigen-

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Independently of these sources, etymologists arrived at the same meaning for tiorba. Wartburg found that it earlier signified the viola da orbo ("blind man's viol" or hurdy-gurdy) in Como and hence by extension came to mean "nearsighted" in a large part of Northern Italy from Venice to Milan.65 Angelico Prati finds the earliest mention of the tiorba in La piazza universale (Venice, 1585) of Tommaso Garzoni, where the author writes of a ciarlatano named Gradella who "imitated a blind man with a cute little dog in his hands instead of a tiorba."66 Here again the tiorba has the connotation "blind man's instrument"; presumably Gradella entertained his audience by cranking the pup- py's tail.

The etymology of the word tiorba has been traced still further by Giovanni Alessio, who postulates its ultimate derivation from the Slavic and Turkish term torba, meaning "beggar's sack."67 According to Alessio, the Venetian dialect sometimes diphthongizes the vowel o to uo, and the diphthong uo can be transmuted to io; thus Venice is the most likely point of origin for the Italian term tiorba. Since Venice is geographically much closer than are Ferrara and Florence to Istria and Dalmatia, where the word torba is recorded, this explanation seems highly credible.68

If tiorba originally designated the hurdy-gurdy of blind beggars, the question remains how it came to be applied to the chitarrone of the Florentine court musicians. The tiorba is first equated with the chitarrone by Alessandro Guidotti in his preface to Cavalieri's Rappresenta- tione di anima e di corpo in I6oo: "Un Chitarrone, 6 Tiorba che si dica. . ."69 The qualifying remark "che si dica" suggests that the use

werk," invented about 1575 by Hans Haiden. Vincenzo Galilei had seen one in Munich and described it in his Dialogo. An example made by Haiden was eventually sold some time after 1653 to Ferdinand II de' Medici, and is presumably the one listed in the Medici instrument inventory of 17I6: "Un Cimbalo con tastatura d'avorio, con invenzione di cinque Ruote per toccar le corde di budella ad uso d'un ghironda" (ghironda is the modern Italian term for hurdy-gurdy). See Kinsky, "Hans Haiden, der Erfinder des Niirnbergischen Geigenswerks," Zeitschrift fur Musikwissen- schaft, VI (1923/4), pp. 193-214. The quotation is from p. 211.

65 W. von Wartburg, "Die Ausdrucke fur die Fehler des Geschichtsorgans in den romanischen Sprachen und Dialekten," Revue de dialectologie romane, III (19i i), p. 432.

66 Angelico Prati, Vocabolario etimologico italiano (Milan, I970), p. 984.

67 Giovanni Alessio, "Ricerche etimologiche su voci italiane antiche," Revue de linguistique romane, XVIII (I954), p. 57.

68 Alessio's etymology of the word has been challenged by Prati, "Vicende di Parole," Revue de linguistique romane, XIX (1955), pp. 213-14. In the light of the new documentation presented above, however, Prati's objections are unconvincing. 69 The preface is given in facsimile in Tamar Clothylde Read, "A Critical Study and Performance Edition of Emilio de'Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di anima e di corpo"

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of the word tiorba for a chitarrone was not yet widely known. One can only speculate that during the 159os some chitarrone players, perhaps prompted by wags, had begun to use the ironic nickname tiorba for their instrument, just as violinists today affectionately call their instrument a fiddle, or a jazz musician calls his clarinet an axe.

The terms tiorba and chitarrone, despite the distinction in size made by Praetorius70 and repeated by nearly every modern writer on the subject, mean exactly the same instrument. Not only Guidotti, but also Aggazzari, D. Barbarino, Piccinini, and G. G. Kapsberger name them together as synonymous, and virtually every other old writer who mentions the instrument uses either one term or the other exclu- sively. During the course of the seventeenth century tiorba gradually superseded chitarrone, so that by mid century the word chitarrone, its original significance doubtless long forgotten, ceased to be used.

POSTSCRIPT: ON TERMINOLOGY TODAY

The term "chitarrone" has been used rather than "theorbo" in this study because it was the earliest designation and because, as has been shown, it reflects the neo-Hellenistic trend in late sixteenth-century Florence that gave birth to the instrument. "Chitarrone" was pre- ferred by Caccini, Piccinini, Cavalieri, Monteverdi, and many other musicians of the very early baroque, perhaps for these same reasons. However, as Spencer has demonstrated in his article cited above, only the terms theorbe, tuorbe, "theorbo" and so forth were known outside of Italy, and after a half-century the word chitarrone had slipped into oblivion even in Italy itself. Therefore "theorbo" might be used today for all long-necked instruments of the lute family that have their first and second courses tuned down an octave. "Chitarrone" may be used interchangeably with "theorbo" in reference to the instrument in Italy and particularly when referring to the instrument of the Medici court musicians and of early monody and opera.

The designation arciliuto refers to a normal small lute with long contrabass strings; liuto attiorbato is a synonym. The widespread modern application of the word "archlute" to the theorbo may stem ulti- mately from a misreading of Piccinini or from Johann Mattheson's statement that "Die Italiener nennen dis [sic] Instrument [the Theorbe]

(D.M.A. diss., University of Southern California, 1969), pp. 135-6, and in translation on pp. 141 ff.

70 Praetorius, p. 52, illustrates a "Paduanische Theorba," slightly under 51/2 (Brunswick) feet long, and a "lang Romanische Theorba: Chitarron" that measures nearly 7 feet.

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nicht selten Archileuto oder Archiliuto, und die Frantzosen Archiluth."71 However, Mattheson was subsequently corrected in personal correspondence by the Dresden court lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss, who had spent the years 1708-14 in Rome and was thus intimately familiar with the Italian practice: "The theorbo and arciliuto are quite different even from each other."72

Despite the obvious convenience of a catch-all term "archlute" for all theorboes and theorboed lutes, the theorbo and archlute should be distinguished from each other, both for historical consistency and because their function in a continuo body is not exactly the same. In general, the theorbo has a larger volume, fuller resonance, a lower tessitura that blends well in an ensemble, and it provides strong, sonorous support for a soloist. The smaller archlute, on the other hand, has, because of the higher-pitched upper two strings, a very penetrating sound, and can also be played more nimbly, which makes it particularly effective with diminutions and cadential ornaments.

Neither the theorbo nor the archlute is a "bass lute," as they are sometimes called today,73 though the tenor or bass lute (liuto grosso) played a role in the evolution of the chitarrone. The bass lute-the term stems from Praetorius and German practice-is simply a large lute with all its courses tuned a third to a fifth lower than the smaller lute that was probably more often used soloistically, and if it has basses below the normal six courses, they lie over the fingerboard and are attached to the regular bent-back pegbox, not an extension.

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich

I am grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung for a fellowship that enabled me to carry out the present research. I also wish to thank Dr. Pierluigi Petrobelli for his kind assistance with the translations in this study.

71 Johann Mattheson, Das Neu-Eriffnete Orchestre (Hamburg, 1713), p. 278. 72 Douglas Alton Smith, "Baron and Weiss contra Mattheson: In Defense of the

Lute," Journal of the Lute Society of America, VI (i973), p. 60. I originally translated Weiss's Arciliuto as "chitarrone" and hereby acknowledge the mistake.

73 See, for instance, Roger Bray, "Performer's Guide," Early Music, VI (1978), p. 581.

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