Dear Rob and Doc, Sorry, but both the Luca della Robbia cantoria reliefs and the Benedetto Antelami carving have been in the literature for a long time - since 1967: Emanuel Winternitz, "Musical Instruments and their Symbolism in Western Art". He also includes three cetra by Agostino di Duccio in the Tempio Malatestiano, Rimini, one of which will become familiar to recipients of my this year's Xmas card, and other depictions on the border-line. The Verona painting by Girolamo dai Libri is particularly interesting being close in date to the Plebanus cittern in Paris, but also because of an earlier painting by the same artist on a ms leaf in the V&A museum, c.1495 showing a large cetra/cetera similar to the cantoria reliefs. There used to be a postcard available of the detail, but this had been discontinued when I enquired earlier this year. A reproduction can be seen in plate 86, V&A Publication: Rowan Watson, "Illuminated Manuscripts and their Makers". A cast of the reliefs and one of the Agostino do.is also in the V&A cast-room. The dividing line between cetra (della Robbia) and cittern (Plebanus) is still woolly and open to further discussion despite the gittern/citole/cetra conference in Basel this year. There was much discussion concerning cetra frets in FoMRHI in the late 70s, but I still know of no completely convincing description.
Peter To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
