Chitarra Italiana (; 'Italian guitar') is a

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

-shaped plucked instrument with four or five single (sometimes double) strings, in a tuning similar to that of the

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

. It was common in Italy during the

Renaissance era The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

. According to Renato Meucci, the designation of 'Italiana' followed the introduction to Italy of the flat-backed development of the instrument – referred to as ''chitarra alla spagnola '' (literally 'Spanish guitar'); to distinguish between the two versions. It is believed to have descended from

pandura The pandura (, ''pandoura'') or pandore, an ancient Greek string instrument, belonged in the broad class of the lute and guitar instruments. Akkadian Empire, Akkadians played similar instruments from the 3rd millennium BC. Ancient Greece, Ancien ...

s, the Mediterranean lutes of Antiquity, and to be related to North African quitra (or kwitra). Its bass variety was known as chitarrone. Musicologist Laurence Wright talked about the chitarrone in a letter to the ''Early Music'' journal (October 1976), saying it implied "large guitar", that it had a rounded back and was likely to be taken for a smaller lute, and that it was found from the 13th century to the 18th century, but was much rarer in the later centuries. He also said that in latter years, when the

mandola The mandola (US and Canada) or tenor mandola (Ireland and UK) is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola ...

was popular, the chitarrone was "sometimes confused with the mandola".

References

* ** ''The theorboed guitar - the Chitarrone Francese ?'',
"''Roberto Meucci recently wrote about small lutes, revealing that in Italy they were called ''chitarra'', so as not to confuse them with the '' chitarra alla spagnola''. Sources from the early 18th Century also declare that the ''chitarra italiana'' or ''chitarrino'' is in reality a small lute.''" {{Renaissance music, state=collapsed Composite chordophones Necked bowl lutes Early musical instruments

See also

References