Scan 19
Musical instruments, historic, rare and unique, 1888
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1harpsichords. Guitars have flat backs, and lutes shell or pear-shaped resonance bodies, and the former are again divided into the guitar proper with catcut strings, and cithers with wire strings necessitating the employment of a plectrum. The Cetera is the Italian name of the cither, and the one drawn in Plate XIV. is of remarkable, although not unusual, beauty. The cither to which the name of Queen Elizabeth is traditionally attached, belongs to the English family of the Pandore, Orpheoreon, and Penorcon; it is not exactly one of these instruments, but it most nearly resembles the last named. As a fine specimen of English work, in no way ceding to the Italian, this beautiful instrument, commonly known as Queen Elizabeth's Lute (Plate IX.), cannot be too highly extolled. The description accompanying this drawing, and in fact the descriptions of all the drawings, must be referred to for those special particulars that are more conveniently given separately. The Lute (Plate XV.) is one of the finest existing examples of its kind. It bears the label of Vvendelio Venere, Padua, dated 1600, and marks the culmination of that once most favourite instrument. The large bass lutes—the theorboes and chitarroni—that came into use about that date, were rendered necessary through the weakness in the bass of the contemporary harpsichord, which was insufficient as a substructure for the Continuo, or Thorough Bass, intended to accompany the Recitativo, then recently introduced at Florence, and forming an essential part of that Monody that was the latest blooming of the Renaissance, as applied to the latest art, harmonised music. The Venetian Theorboes (or Tiorbe) and Chitarroni (Plates XVI. and XXI.) are of great beauty and historical interest. But the lute, even when diapasons or extra bass strings were added to it, went out, being superseded by the more useful, although less beautifully toned, spinet. The latest lute instruments are the pleasing Mandolines to which fashion may possibly grant a new lease of popularity. These instruments are drawn in Plate XXIII. Both ear and eye are equally gratified in that culmination of qualities attained in a violin, in which the sound and shape are so intimately and inseparably connected that we fail to conceive the one without some mental reference to the other. The form and colour of a fine
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.