----- Original Message ----- From: "doc rossi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Cittern NET" <[email protected]> Cc: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 8:30 PM Subject: [CITTERN] Re: Oldest Cittern candidate
> Thanks for the links, Roger, and to Rob for forwarding them to the > cittern list. Hi Doc; thanks, and you're welcome. I guess I'll take this opportunity to join the list, so hello to all. > There is a 12th-century sculpture depicting a citole or cittern in > the Parma Baptistry. There's an interesting site about the citole / > gittern here: > > http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~pbutler/citole.html > > Here is what it says about the Parma sculpture: > > "Chronologically, our next representation of the instrument is this > sculpture by Benedetto Antelami, ca.1180, from the Baptistry in > Parma, Italy. It shows an instrument with four distinct strings, a > bridge, definite raised frets, and small wings at the top of the body." ah, I see. It really hadn't clicked for me that you-all trace your history back to citoles. Medieval instrument history is still so fuzzy. It would be nice to ba able to map it all out a little more clearly, find more iconography of the nearer intermediate stages, transitions, evolutions, relationships, etc. The Renaissance Cittern page doesn't list the della Robbia image http://www.theaterofmusic.com/cittern/art/index.html He starts with dai Libri (1520), and doesn't have pictures of either posted. I assume he's a list member here(?) and that he'll grab these two images for his site collection, I do hope. If someone takes the Robbia instrument, it's shape-features and date, and works backwards from there, you might find the next closest link backwards within the evolutionary timeline and tree. They may be just heaped together with all early lutes as this point, i.e miss-filed, miss categorized, in existing collections of iconography. For the last couple years I've been gathering up all the early vihuela-viola iconography I could find, plucked and bowed, hoping to re-integrate the family, let people actually see the (indisputable) relationships and common origin -- viols, our bowed other-half, having somehow gotten away from us over time -- and hopefully help set a new standard of assumptions and associations regarding what vihuela-viola-guitars _are_, i.e. we've lost half of the family, erased from memory, bowed guitar? viola da what? ;') Some of you may have stumbled on my web site already -- there's six long and icon-heavy pages starting here . . . http://www.thecipher.com/viola_da_gamba_cipher.html Anyhow, in the course of my hunt for iconography I came across countless Renaissance and Baroque cittern images that are out there for you-all to gather up and display, if you're so inclined. I had enough on my plate, enough categories of instruments to collect, that regretfully I didn't have time to keep track of all the citterns I came across as well. Citterns were very definitely a presence, a force, so I think you owe it to yourselves, to shine the light on yourselves, you're history, heritage, and contributions, and there's nothing like a good collection of iconography to help make your point. I haven't given much time to citterns, and there's probably a book or two of cittern history and iconography published by now (yes? no?), but the web is where it seems to count these days, if you really have a message you want to get across, be seen, acknowledged, remembered, known, increase your ranks, etc. Lutes and guitars are fairly well covered by now, but citterns have yet to reclaim their rightful place and presence, in any significant way, in our conscious awareness, our associations, our readily-retrievable mental image-bank, of what the landscape really was, and really included. Anyhoo, I'm glad you're all well on the road to doing that, recapturing your history, and even have your own list. I guess one really does have to be familiar with the all (or many) of the early string instruments, if only to help know one of them in particular. The fragmentation and issolation, via separate lists and groups, has it's place, but the big picture, a more inclusive and integrated bubble, seems almost manditory and the ultimate goal. So here I am, a new guy, looking to expand my bubble, embrace more of the whole, little by little ;') I've already got a few questions lingering in the back of my mind that you early metal-string slingers and history-buffs may have a matter-of-fact handle on already. Thanks Roger > > Doc > > http://www.musicintime.co.uk/DocRossi/doc.htm > http://www.magnatune.com/artists/docrossi > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
