Roland Ferrari says, on his site: "The cittern became popular in the 12th Century; its flexibility and rich timbre were perfectly suited to the monody played by the troubadours and trouvères who wandered over Europe in the Middle Ages taking an immense musical and literary culture with them. The cittern is also found in the "Cantiguas de Sancta Maria" of Alfonse X the Wise, 430 pieces of the manuscript of which have survived. The pieces were probably inspired by the "virelai" of the troubadours in Picardy and Provence."
Then there is a bit about Mersenne and straight to the modern Corsican cittern. The stuff about the cittern in the Middle Ages, is - looks to me be to be a bit cranky. Isn't the ususal view that citterns appear in the 15th century? If he's talking about citoles then citoles are citoles and citterns are citterns and the link between them isn't that clear cut, if tempting. There is no link established between general remarks on Renaissance citterns in other parts of Europe and the new Corsican cittern. Does he do this somewhere else? Doc and Roman mention a tablature from 1720. I've looked through recent emails but I may have missed something. I can't find a thing and don't know where to begin looking. Any more details? Is there really a Corsican cittern tradition? Or is it more of an imaginary, romantic history? One of the daftest things I've come across is this, on the bandurria: http://www.trioassai.com/bandufaqe.html#historia It's light-hearted, I think but there's a sort of game going on here: 'my national instrument is older than yours'. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
