The Cipher for Viola da Gamba and Lute   Page 1   Page 2  Page 3   Page 4   Page 5   Page 6             Above; guitar and viol, Louis Licherie,  L’accord des Nations,1679               A little guitar, vihuela, viola, viol, and lute, history Regarding any misperceptions (or general historical amnesia among guitarists) that there is a gap or some missing links that leave us, by the early 1800s, with 6 string guitars but no (or few) bowl-back lutes . . . First, guitars and vihuelas are definite relatives of each other. They are one-and-the-same-thing, in fact, whether they had 4, 5, or 6 courses. Some people insist on reserving the name vihuela for the largest or 6 course instrument of circa 1500, but I see no reason for this distinction or separation of the family. The distinction is perpetuated, it seems to me, primarily on elitist grounds, i.e. which instrument we perceive to be more important, more sophisticated, more respected in aristocratic circles, which has the most surviving music written for it, which instrument is more capable of competing head-to-head with the largest of the bowl-back lutes, in other words, which makes you a bigger man to play. By 1500, all three sizes of plucked fretted fourths, 4, 5, and 6 course, coexisted side by side, and by that time you could probably already find them all in the shape of vihuela/viola bodies, as well as gittern and other bowl-back lute-style bodies. As the 16th century rolled on, the earlier gittern-lute body was abandoned entirely, and this is the main reason you have four course guitars becoming common circa 1550. i.e. like with so many other string instruments of the age, the viola-vihuela style body and construction method came to dominate. The four course guitars were simply a continuation of the four course specie that had existed for hundreds of years prior, or you could say they came back to fill a void, i.e. to maintain availability of  simpler music making machines for the masses to play, but now in viola-vihuela bodies rather than bowl-back lute and gittern bodies having four courses. In other words, four course guitars (lute-ness in four courses) weren’t new, per say, and the four course instruments c.1550 were not the first guitars, they were actually an afterthought, reintroduced after the fact, after the fact of the larger 5 and 6 course guitars, vihuelas, violas, which in turn (it could be argued) were largely after the fact of bowl-back lutes, i.e. bowl-back luteness transferred to the newer vihuela-viola body style, shape and construction technique. I actually believe that four course vihuelas were here in 1480, 1500, 1525, 1550, 1575, 1600. The main reason we perceive them as being new or reintroduced around 1550 is because the pear shaped guiterne was abandoned, and because we have surviving published, printed, music for it beginning c.1550.       below; four string bowed guitar (vihuela d’arco), late 1400’s, Valencia, Spain. I find it hard to believe that there were no four string or four course plucked vihuelas and violas existing at this same time, or that this player didn’t simply put her bow down and pluck this very same instrument. The point being, this is way before 1550, and it’s a four string vihuela, a four string guitar, albeit bowed in this picture.       Below; vihuela de arco (bowed guitar), Valencia, Madonna, late 15th century.       My gathering of the early guitar story is that circa 1250 AD there were already 4 coarse fretted instruments that were physically guitar-like and distinct from the bowl-back oud/lute varieties. The previously mentioned Cantigas de Santa Maria (c.1260 Spain) captured a large sampling of all of these instruments for us to see and consider. In the 13th century  there were distinguishing terms in use, like guitarra-moresque (Moorish Arab, assumed to be a bowl-back variety of long neck lute) and guitarra-latina (the bigger question mark). The latter is probably either the same as or precursor to the vihuelas and may or may not have been native of Europe (verses imported form the Arab Moors or Egypt, etc.). There were also instruments called citoles, played with a plectrum, fretted, 3, 4, or 5 string, their bodies assumed to have been carved from a single block of wood. Many of these can be seen carved in stone on the facades of medieval cathedrals pror to the cantigas illuminations. Some of the cantigas guitarras and earlier citoles seen in stone might be one and the same instrument. "Vihuela de arco" is first mentioned circa 1350 by Juan Ruiz, (Archpriest of Hita), Spanish/Castilian, in his "Libro de buen amor" (The Book of Good Love). The section titled "Libro de buen amor" distinguishes vihuela de penola (played with a plectrum) from vihuela de arco (played with a bow). The vihuelas and guitarra latina’s have a different body type from the  melon-backed Oud/lutes, the compact and comfortable flatter back and more or less figure eight (knee friendly) curves to their sides. They could have been just a simpler (i.e four coarse), easier to play subset of the Oud/Lute, a  baby Lute, essentially retrograding to an earlier state of an original Arab 4ths tuned specie of about 1000 AD (before it grew more courses) and given a “body lift”, a more comfortable shape, compromising some sound volume and music-making capacity (due to string count), but still adequate and functional. It could make music, be easier and cheaper to construct, travel easily, and be comfortable to play. And said body lifted baby lute could have evolved in either the Middle East or in Europe or both. The vihuelas and guitars of the early and middle 1400s had four or even five courses of strings and were  tuned primarily in either all 4ths, or as 4th 3rd 4th (aka baby lute tuning). [There is a tuning described in 1540 as being the old way which reportedly was 5th 3rd 4th across four courses low to high.] We have a vihuela d’arco of five strings dated circa 1470. It's a near certainty that a 5 course vihuela de mano, viola da mano, or guitarra existed at that early date as well -- five course lutes are common by then. We also have pictures of four string bowed guitars and I believe four course waist-cut viola guitars during this same period. The later  coincide with four course lutes and gitterns. So guitars, vihuelas, and violas, are essentially one-and the-same-thing. Bowl-back lutes and gitterns are also essentially the same things as all early guitars (vihuela, viola, whatever you want to call them). They are all related from a tuning-line perspective at least, and in the end, that’s really all that matters. Early lutes and early guitars are both tuned in 4ths, have chromatic frets, most have the 4th 3rd 4th tuning kernel, use courses of strings, (pairs of strings acting as one), and both have the four course models in their early history. Lutes and vihuela-guitars have been evolving in parallel and cross-pollenating for probably a 1000 years. As a group, they may have had 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 strings or courses (or more on later lutes), but if they have frets and are tuned in either straight fourths or have the 4th 3rd 4th tuning kernel within, they are the same bird, same line (as far as I’m concerned, me being a guitar player generally, a player of chromatically fretted fourths-tuned string instruments, and what I do now and would then have perceived as being my family of immediately accessible, approachable, and playable instruments -- those instruments I would call mine with equal conviction and affection. In the end, perhaps the only thing one can rely on is something like the fretboard genetics (tuning line) relationships I’ve provided here, i.e. what’s on the inside or under the hood that’s really driving the the ship, steering the coarse. The rest, the body shape game, is a wild goose chase at this point. For the purposes of the points I’m making here, it doesn’t matter that versions or instruments evolved separately in different geography’s or countries. The only thing that would matter is that they existed, and that the same ”tool” or resource was used to make music with, and that they shared that common music-making configuration – at least four courses tuned to either all 4ths or had the  “4th 3rd 4th” kernel, and had chromatic frets.       Baby-lute             Some ancient instruments     Below: French Psalter, 9th century manuscript illumination, Stuttgart Psalter, c.830 (plucked instrument).       Below: Carolingian (French) Psalter, 9th century manuscript illumination (guitar-like)       Below; 9th century plucked instrument, Bamberg ms, Boethius-Qaudrivium, c.845ad.       Below; cithara-lyra, 9th-cent, Bible of Charles the Bald       Below; cithara-lyra, 9th-cent, Utrecht Psalter.       Below; citole, 12th-cent, 4-str, frets, rosette, Benedetto Antelami, c.1180, Baptistrym, Parma, Italy.       Below; citole, 13th-cent, portal, Cathedral of Burgos.       Below; citole-guitern, 13th-cent, Lincoln Cathedral, Enland, c.1270.       Cantigas de Santa Maria Illuminations Guitarras and Lutes -- 1260 AD Spain       Below; close up detail of two Cantigas guitarras, 1260, Spain. Some might call these instruments citoles.       Below; Cantigas guitarras, Latina and Moresque, 1260, Spain.       Below, detail of Cantigas Guitar This fretted instrument actually has five single strings (and not paired courses). The above image makes it appear to have only three strings. Medieval guitars had either 3, 4, or 5 single strings. We went to paired courses a short time later, sometime in the  1300’s (I gather).       Below; Cantigas guitarras Moresque, 1260 Spain       Below; Cantigas guitarras, Moresque, 1260, Spain.       Below; Cantigas Ouds, 1260 Spain       Below; Alfonso’s Book of Games lute, c.1260       Below; unidentified Portuguese medieval picture with guitar ancestor       below; unidentified medieval guitar (gittern, gitarra latina, or late citole), 13th or 14th century (believe it or not). Has trefoil tail I think, around which the string-tail-proper would have been attached by a loop of chording.       Below; guitarra-citole, Ormesby Psalter, 14th century.       below; Medieval 4 course lute or gittern: Simone Martini, detail 1312-17       Below; guiterne, Juan Oliver, 1330, Spain, Cathedral of Pampelune.       below; gittern, fresco, Cathedral Saint Julien du Mans, France, c.1325       Below; gittern, Dance, Miniature, Romaun De La Rose, c.1390-1410       Below; gittern, dancing to, late-medieval, early 1400s.       Oud-lute, 5 course, fretted, Arab music theory treatise, c.1334     below; four course Lute, 1420, Pietro di Domenico da Montepulciano       Below; lute, Melozzo De Forli, 1439-1494. I believe this one could be a flat-backed instrument, perhaps an early chitarra (Italian for gitarra-gittern type lute instruments).       below; Lute, Gerard Davis, Flemish, 1505, detail from Virgin with Child, Saints, and Angels.       below; Lutes, Bartolomeo Montagna,1498, Virgin Enthroned, Italian       below; vihuela guitar, Luca Signorelli, 1499-1502, Paradise, San Brizio, Italy       below; vihuela, viola, guitar, anon, Sardinian School, Madonna and Child c.1500, Italy       below; vihuela guitar with bent-back lute-style peg-head, Apollo, Franchinus Gaffurius, Practica Musicae, Milan, 1496.       Below; Vihuela de mano, Valencia Spain, c.1500. I believe this instrument had a single cut. Note it’s very long thin neck and sickle shaped peg box.       Below; Vihuela de mano, Sardinian school, c.1500, smooth curved indented waist and perhaps single stung as well, see the blow up following.       Below; detail of the above Sardinain vihuela, string count?       Below; Italian viola da mano, c.1510-15, fresco, Ferarra.       Below; mid 15th century five string fretted instrument, Italian, very similar in appearance to Renaissance fiddles, yet it’s extra-wide bridge tells me it’s not a fiddle (plucked), unless it too is a multi-function instrument, pluck and bow.         Above I said that most vihuelas and guitars of the mid 1400s are thought to have had only four courses of strings and were  tuned either in all 4ths, or as 4th 3rd 4th (lute kernel). Some five coursers were appearing as well. Five course bowl-back lutes had already been around for quite a while (and perhaps even six) and most definitely they were in Spain (being Moorish influenced since 8th century). Take a look at the instruments seen in the circa 1250 AD Cantigas illuminations alone. Near the end of the 1400s, in Spain, you have a jump in the number of courses found on vihuelas and violas, from 4 and  5, to 6, and even 7 course instruments. These would appear to be newly designed hopeful substitutes or replacements for the 5, and 6 course bowl-backed lutes, the same lutes that had already spread all around Europe and the British Isles, and the same lutes for which a large body of music and song had already been composed. So for a short time at least, in Spain and Italy, these new instruments (6, and even 7 course vihuelas) appeared. I don’t know exactly how long this anomaly lasted  (6 course plucked vihuela and violas), 30 years perhaps, but not long after that you have a return to 5 and 4 course vihuelas, violas, and guitars being the norm, and  the apparent disappearance of the 6 and 7 course vihuelas. However, I contend that the six course viola survived, as bowed viola, aka viola da gamba. The six course viola and vihuela were in direct competition with the six course bowl-back lutes, having the exact same tuning. For whatever reason, the 6 and 7 course vihuelas (apparently) couldn’t compete with the bowl-back lutes, but they did find a niche to fill in the bowed arena, a niche which the bowl-back lutes could not fill, so everything worked out fine in the end. And, of course, we still had 4 and 5 course plucked vihuela-viola-guitars in any event   Viola sine arculo [or Vihuela de mano] There is another instrument variant (and instrument name) to add to our understanding of the greater (and early) guitar family; the Spanish (Argonese) originated waiste-cut “Viola” guitar, as it would be called in Italy. The instrument is very often seen plucked, but as we can see in the pictures below it certainly appears ready to be bowed (see waist cut-outs), and it is already fully formed in the exact body shape of the soon to be  Italian named viola da gamba, aka bowed viola/guitar -- which it in fact became. In other words, we do see both plucked and bowed versions of the same instrument as soon as we understand that they are essentially one and the same -- plucked viola sine arculo and bowed viola da gamba. The instruments below are called either viola sine arculo, (meaning viola without a bow), viola da mano (of thee hand), or just plain viola. In Spain they were called vihuela de mano. Notice too, the sickle shaped peg-box (for tuning pegs), a feature also visible in the earlier Cantigas guitars. This instrument appears frequently in iconography starting in the mid-late 1400s. At the time, Spain and Italy were politically, culturally, and religiously, joined at the hip. Interestingly, and further proof of the connections being made here, the word for luthier in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil (at least) is now, and was then, violero. So the makers of vihuelas, lutes, guitars, violas (plucked and bowed) were called violeros. By now, and out of ear shot and radar of guitarists (i.e. contained within and limited to the small orbit that is the Early music community or/and small private subscription-only scholarly journals, societies, and expensive out of print musicological books) most viola da gamba historians, societies, and web sites, suggest  (if not declare) that viola da gamba are probably decedent from "some kind" of Spanish/Italian early guitar (vihuela viola). I agree -- and have agreed for quite some time but via other kinds of proofs and logics. While most VDGS's are finally making this claim (vihuela to viol) none seem to be diligently looking for nor displaying vihuela/viola iconography side-by-side with the early viola da gamba iconography, all in one place and at the same time, so we can really see the visual connections in the record between instruments. This is what I've been trying to do and show, and I believe I've now succeeded  -- to the point that it's beyond the shadow of a doubt. Again, the first step is to move away from the smooth curved peanut or figure eight shaped vihuala/viola/guitar to the more “violin” shaped vihuela-viol guitars, that is the ones with the shape waist cut-outs. From there, few years later, you add a few distinct features specific to bowing, higher and wider arched bride and the end of fretboard up off the face of the instrument (for example) add a bow, and you have the 6 string viola da gamba (viola cum arculo, meaning with bow), and the connections,  guitar-to-viol, that we’ve been looking for.       Below; Viola sine arculo / Vihuela de mano: Spanish/Italian circa 1493, Borgia Apartments, Vatican, Quadrivium, Music fresco, by Bernadino Pinturicchio             Above, color detail: Italian/Spainish “Viola sine Arculo” (viola without bow) aka vihuela, c.1493, Borgia apartments, the Vatican, Rome, fresco by Bernadino Pinturicchio.  [This is the same Borgia, from Valencia Spain, who became Pope Alexander VI in 1492, bringing with him his entire court chapel, including  many violists (plucked and bowed).] Below: super detail of the Pinturicchio plcked waist-cut Viola guitar         Below: Vihuela de penola (= Viola de penola) 1470-80 Valencia Spain detail, "Virgen con nino y angeles musicos", Retablo-Alterpeice, Colegiata de Xativa Here below then is the link from the Italian “Viola” back to it’s Spanish origin -- there called “Vihuela”. Notice the two small rosette ports in the upper bouts, left and right. This is a common feature of the more figure-eight smooth-curved sided Vihuelas as well. Also notice how thin this neck is -- could be a 4 string or course instrument.       Below; enlarged detail of the above       Below, Viola with bow, compare to the above same 4 string 10 frets bent-back lute-style peg-head Sardinia Italy c.1500       Below; we’ll back up a minute for three of the earliest waist-cut vihuela, all being mid 1400s, Aragonese (is north eastern Spain or Iberian peninsula).                               Below; new one for the collection, 9-2006. Plucked waist-cut viola. Illumination from an Italian Book of Hours dated 1483, David praying. Mighty thin ribs there ;-) Interestingly shaped butt end too. Note it’s super-wide bridge too.       Below: plucked viola, Painting by Ercole de'Roberti 1496. "Le bon augure" (The Good Omen). Again, look closely at how thin this neck is -- could be another 4 string or course instrument.             Below; vihuela de arco (bowed guitar), stone carving on Spanish Cathedral, c1510. A bow in his right hand. is indicated. The overall size, proportions, depth, and configuration of this instrument is the thing to note and compare to similar plucked viola-vihuela-guitars.       Below; another view of the same (is how I now have a date and place for this instrument and image). Thank you Ian.       Below: plucked viola, by Cristoforo Scacco, c.1500, Italian The coronation of the Virgin       Below; waist-cut viola, Antonio-Giovanni Boltraffio, St. Sebastion, c1500, Italy       Below; viola sine arculo, unidentified but I’ll guess it at around c1485-1510, Spain or Italy. Another super-thin necked, very small bodied, waist-cut plucked viola. [update, I now have a place and date for this picture, it’s Argon, Spain, late 1400’s. Thanks again to Ian]       Below; detail of the above       Below; split-window detail portion of a large fresco, Saint Vincent enthroned with angel musicians and music-making puti (infants) left and right both playing small waist-cut vihuela-violas, Catalan (Spain), San Vincente, late 15th century. [Thanks to Alexander]       Below; left-side puto with small waist-cut vihuela-viola, Catalan, San Vincente, late 15th or early 16th century.       Below; right-side puto with small waist-cut vihuela-viola, Catalan, San Vincente, late 15th century.       Below: Six string bowed Viola (da gamba), Painting, Timoteo Viti, Italy, 1469-1525 (born/died), Madonna and child, detail. Compare the features of this instrument with those of the previous few pictures. We can ball-park this one to around c.1500. 11-30-2004 8:20am The image below could be the KEY! Two viola in one! Is that two bridges? one low and flat, one high wide and arched, pluck and bow, insert bowing bridge in front when desired, or just swap them around, neither is fixed. Or, could that possibly be a stick of bow rosin tucked away? What did their rosin look like? What else could that be?           11-30-2004 6:00pm Nope, that’s not rosin ;’) Below: blowup of bridge certainly appears to be a short, flat-topped bridge,  laying on it’s side, tucked under the strings, with tapered ends and tapered underside cuts, lots of geometry. This might be  it folks —  the smoking gun (for pluck and bow) —  and for other reasons as well. We are still investigating as of 12-3-04, but for now I can say this for sure;  the Viti viola is also, and at minimum, some kind of conversion and chop-job adaptation from a 4 or 5 string plucked instrument to a 6 stringed bowed instrument. Notice it’s very narrow neck, very narrow tail, small peg-head, outside strings hanging off the edge of the fretboard left and right, path and angles of strings from tail to bridge to nut, and more. The two bridges might be just a broken bridge, only half currently being used (which I don’t happen to think is the case), but a bridge that is still too big and ill-fitting that instrument in any event. This is a very odd specimen indeed. Thanks to the French Federation of Viola da gamba Societies for the original image and their online database of historical viol iconography. (This is what iconography is for.)     Below; painting detail, two bridges blowup:  Timoteo Viti, Italy, c.1500, Madonna and child. Two in one, six string viola, plucked or bowed.       Below; small color detail of the real thing             Update, 12-16-04; Turns out it is a two bridge instrument, and  Ephraim Segerman writes about the two bridge Viti viol in a manuscript draft now on the internet [titled; The developement of European Bowed Instruments up to the Baroque: a closer look. His draft, as of February 2002, can be viwed here: http://www.nrinstruments.demon.co.uk/Bowed2.html Here's what Segerman has to say about it — very similar to what I’ve said, and seeing the same oddity I saw (two bridges). He doesn't mention it could be a conversion of an earlier 4 or 5 string instrument (which I suspect is the case), and he's suggesting the two bridges are indicative of two styles of bowing on a single instrument — rather than pluck and bow : ". . . . A 1505 painting [illustrated in Plate 52 in Woodfield op. cit.] shows a viol with a bridge with shallow curvature parked under the strings behind a higher bridge (being used at the time) that had rather more curvature. This indicates that players exchanged bridges to play in different styles: With a higher bridge having more curvature, individual strings could be sounded separately when bowing near the bridge, and groups of strings could be sounded while bowed farther from the bridge. . . . " Ian Woodfield's book (on early viol history) mentions the picture without commenting on the bridge oddities. At any rate, while this separates "first discovery" from me (which wasn't the main point anyway) it confirms that at least someone writing in scholarly like fashion on the history of early bowed string instruments is of the same opinion (two bridges). Segerman also speaks matter-of-factly of the vihuela to viols connection, and even specifically singles out the "waist cut"  variant of vihuela as being key. [E. Segerman, I’m told, is one of the most prolific authors on the history of stringed instruments, has a large number of articles published in the FOMRHI journal stretching back 30 years or more, etc].       Below; a key juxtaposition, similar plucked and bowed vihuela/viola from the same period and general place.       Below; continuing in a similar vain, similar instruments, first a plucked Argonese vihuela, early 1500’s       Below; detail of the above       And here below; a series of three (from one image) showing two bowed vihuela, from Valencia or Majorca c.1500, of the same size and particulars as the above plucked instrument.       Below; details of the two vihuela de arco in the above image, left and right side.       Below; still greater detail of the above for string count.       Below; and we’ll add this one too (again), San Esteban Valencian vihuela de arco, late 1400s.       Below; vihuela de arco, five string, series of three details from a late 15th century fresco attributed to the Oslo Master, Aragon, Spain.