I went to the V&A in London yesterday - for the first time in years (and had to leave after about 40 minutes because the musical instrument section had to be closed down because of short staff! This on a Saturday morning.)
There is an instrument in with the citterns, from c.1780 and it's from Spain. Unusual. It's shaped more or less like a slightly waisted guitar but, if the string set-up is original, with wire strings with four pairs and two single basses (like an English guitar). The really odd thing about it is the accompanying note saying that "recent research" has shown that instruments like this were played by Spanish virtuosi along with other instruments in one-man bands. I've never heard of this. A recent discussion on the cittern list on Iberian citterns confirmed what I thought: there was very little cittern activity in Spain, and certainly not virtuoso one-man bands.In fact I've never head of a virtuoso one-man band - seems oxymoronic. This V&A instrument is set up like an English guitar. English guitars - and Portuguese guitars of that time - were chordally tuned. Paradoxically, chordally tuned guitars are not good at all for strumming chords. I googled around the article by Beryl Kenyon de Pascual came up. It's just about 18th century Spanish one-man bands in connection with an unspecified instrument in the Met. Her article may have nothing to do with the V&A instrument. Here's what the instrument looks like and the text of the accompanying note: http://www.tuningsinthirds.com/Spanishcittern/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
