IntroductionWhat was the nature of the instrument that
sixteenth-century Spaniards, Italians,Frenchmen, and Englishmen
knew as the guitarra, chitarra, guiterre, and gittern,respectively?
Was the Spanish vihuela de mano considered a guitar? What did
Italianmusicians in the late sixteenth century mean y the terms
chitarra spagnola, chitar-riglia, chitarrino, chitarra italiana,
and chitarra napolitanat!ccording to documentary evidence,
including contemporaneous sources of musicfor the instrument, the
typical sixteenth-century guitar was a small,
figure-"-shaped,four-course, trele-range instrument, tuned a fourth
or more higher and aout one-third the si#e of a modern $lassical
guitar% &ater in the century the Italians would alsorefer to it
as chitarrino, chitarra italiana, and chitarra napolitana% 'he
somewhat largerfive-course guitar, which the Italians called the
chitarra spagnola, first appeared in thethird (uarter of the
sixteenth century% 'he still larger, six-course, lower-range,
figure-"-shaped Spanish vihuela de mano, and its Italian
counterpart, the viola da mano,were not considered guitars% Indeed,
as will e seen, all availale evidence from thesixteenth century
indicates that the guitar had its own separate and distinct
character,function, tunings, and repertory, and that
sixteenth-century players, theorists, andcomposers regarded the
vihuela not as a guitar ut as a figure-"-shaped Spanishe(uivalent
of the lute%Spain: La Guitarra de quatro or denesIn his set of
variations on the $onde $laras ground) for vihuela *+elphin
demusica % % %),-"., the excellent Spanish composer &uis de
/arvae# *fl% ),-0-,0. provides con-clusive evidence that the guitar
and vihuela were regarded as two distinct instrumentsin
sixteenth-century Spain% 1e specifically heads one section of his
fifteenth variation2contrahaciendo la guitarra2 *in imitation of
the guitar., and for this section employsonly the four inner
courses of the vihuela, which comprise the interval pattern*though
not the pitches. of the four-course guitar%3ore evidence from
mid-sixteenth-century Spain is provided y 4uan 5ermudo*c% I ,Io-I
),6,., who pulished a ook of music theory, Ellira primo de la
declarationde instruments, in 7suna in ),89 and an expanded
edition, El lira llamado declarationde instruments musicales, in
I,,,-: 5ermudo is the source of the earliest tuning in-formation we
have for the guitar% 1e also explains the procedures for
intaulatingpre-existing vocal and instrumental music for the
guitar, vihuela, and andurria? 1edescries the guitar as smaller
than the vihuela *2mas corto2, ch% 6,., and as generallyhaving only
four courses,8 with an interval pattern resemling the second to
fifthcourses of a vihuela% 'he specific tunings for guitar given in
Ex% i% i are found in &ira(uarto *ch% 6,.% ;oman numerals
designate the courses%!s illustrated, in oth the 2temple a los
nuevos2 *new tuning. and 2temple a losvie 1owever, unlike 5ermudo,
he does not specify nominaltunings for either the guitar or the
vihuela%Part IIn addition to vihuela solos, songs to the vihuela,
and a solo for harp or organ, 'resliros de mmica includes six solos
for the four-course 2guitarra2%)" 'he first is a fantasiain
imitative style using the 2temple vie also includes five guitar
ta-latures that were copied from &e ;oy2s printed ooks% 'he
collection for four-courseguitar pulished in !ntwerp in ),>0 y
Eierre Ehalese and 4ean 5ellere under the&atin title
Selectissima elegantissima(ue, Callica, Italica el &atina in
guiterna ludendacarmina% % ,:" includes ninety-two items pirated
from &e ;oy2s ooks I-H, as wellas the talature parts for his
voice and guitar pieces, ut not the vocal parts in staffnotation%
'he remaining sixteen items in the Ehalese and 5ellere pulication
alsoseem to e y &e ;oy, ut are not from any of his surviving
ooks%:9'he Ehalese and 5ellere print egins with instructions in
&atin for tuning andplaying the guitar% Some scholars have
surmised that they were from &e ;oy2s losttutorD however,
+oson, Segerman, and 'yler-0 have shown that they are actually
avery ad adaptation for guitar of Seastian Hredeman2s cittern
instructions from a),6" pulication that was also printed y Ehalese%
Ironically, these garled, mislead-ing instructions serve as another
indication of how closely associated the guitar andcittern were in
the minds of sixteenth-century musicians%'he two pulished series y
3orlaye, Corlier, &e ;oy, and 5rayssing comprise anextensive
and varied selection of music for an instrument that had ecome, y
thistime, a true fixture in the musical life of France% 4ust how
popular the guitar hadecome is revealed in a short anonymous
treatise entitled +iscours non plus melan-coli(ues % % % *Eoitiers,
),,6.%-) Its author oserves that formerly the lute was used
morethan the guitarD however, during the last twelve or fifteen
years everyone has taken tothe guitar, and today there are more
guitarists in France than in Spain%-: 1e also men-tions that the
lute and guitar have their strings arranged in doule courses,
except forthe first, which is single, and thus corroorates
5ermudo2s statement that the guitarhas seven strings in four
courses% !fter explaining how to divide up thevirating string
length of a lute from nut to ridge in order to find the proper
places forthe tied frets, he says that you end up with a string
length of two or three feet *2pie2.,ut when you calculate the
fretting for a guitar, you are working with a string length ofonly
a foot and a half--! manuscript from aout ),", *F-En 3S fr% 9),:.,
intended y its author 4ac(ues$ellier as a didactic discourse on a
wide range of suIn F%)9>> eight pages of ;owotham2s lost
gittern ook were recovered%)" Four ofthem, now in the Han Eelt
&irary of the Lniversity of Eennsylvania in Ehiladelphia*no
shelf numer., are headed 2!n instruction to the Citterne2 and
contain incomplete pieces in French talature for a four-course
instrument tuned to guitar intervals% 'hecaptions on two of the
pages are in French, 2Elus diminues2 and 2Elus fredonnes2,which
indicate here, as they do in some of &e ;oy2s lute pulications,
that these are themore emellished and the much more emellished
versions *in terms of the rapidityof the passagework and the
smaller note values. of well-known pieces% 'he plain ver-sions of
the pieces are not among the fragments preserved here% /either are
there titleson the fragments, although one is an exact concordance
of the complete 2Elusdiminues2 version of the !lmande% &es
ouffons from Ehalese2s ),>0 print, and is fol-lowed y the 2!2
section of the 2Elus fredonnes2 version of the same piece%/ot long
after the existence of the Ehiladelphia fragments ecame known,
anothertwo pages were recovered in Shrewsury y Eeter +uckers, who,
several months later,found two more%)9 !stonishingly, the four new
pages turned out to e from the samesection of the ook as the
previously recovered Ehiladelphia fragments% It is now pos-sile to
assemle a hypothetical se(uence of the pages as follows? a
Ehiladelphia pagecontaining a short untitled prelude *to
demonstrate the ma6-arpiece% It would not e difficult to
reconstruct its missing opening ars%7n the same +uckers page is
&es uffons, which turns out to e the plain version ofthe piece
mentioned previously in the description of the Ehiladelphia
fragments% It isan exact concordance of the plain version of the
!lmande% &es ouffons from Ehalese2s),>0 print% 'he next
Ehiladelphia page contains the aforementioned 2Elus diminuesversion
of &es uffons, and the Ehiladelphia page which follows, the
aforementioned 2!2section of the 2Elus fredonnes2 version of the
piece% 'he 252 section of this versionwould have een on the next
page, which, unfortunately, is still missing, and the final+uckers
page contains the last eight measures of it% 'he 2Elus fredonnes2
versions ofthis and other &e ;oy pieces are not included in the
Ehalese print, perhaps ecause he0"% 'he music isvery simpleD most
of the pieces have no arlines or rhythm signs, and it is clear
thatthey are the work of an amateur scrie, notating as est she6
could, an aide-memoirefor future reference% /evertheless, the
contents, which have not een identified or dis-cussed previously,
offer not only an anthology of some of the guitar2s most
popularrepertory, ut also some valuale ancillary information%'he
manuscript contains twenty short guitar pieces in all, eginning on
folio )8with an untitled setting of the 5ergamasca in triple time,
followed y a setting of;uggiero% Folio i8v includes a piece
entitled &afranchina, which is a setting of thepopular commedia
dett2arte song &a ella Franceschina% Folio ), contains a
setting ofthe $avalletto #oppo, which is the accompaniment to a
popular song ased on theEassame##o antico ground% /othing is known
aout 3algarita on folio i,v% Folioi6rWv contains an !ria da
cantare, a harmonic formula to which poetry was sung%>
/otsurprisingly, the harmonies are that of the most fre(uently used
ground for this prac-tice, the ;omanesca% !n unidentified Eavana
appears next *fo% )>., followed y twountitled and unidentified
pieces on folios iyv and )"% 'he next two pieces are
entitled&irum and $iciliana *fos% )"H and )9.D and on folio )9H
there is a 3atacinata, the Italianversion of the French 3atachines,
a semi-ritual dance that generally portrays a mockattle or sword
fight% 'he folk-religious version of the 3atachines survives to
this dayin 3exico and elsewhere%" 'he music for the Italian
3atacinata, as for the other six-teenth-century versions, consists
of two ars of I and two ars of IH, with an offeat or syncopated
rest from ar - into 8% 'he four ars are repeated again and again
until thedance ends%9'he next piece *on the same folio., entitled
5uratinata, has