> > From: Roman Turovsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Date: 2004/12/01 Wed AM 09:30:40 EST > > To: LUTE-LIST <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Subject: FW: Key discovery -- two bridge early viola da gamba, pluck and > > bow c.1500, Timoteo Viti painting > > > > From: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Newsgroups: rec.music.early > >
[snip] > >From there, a wholly > > unexpected find, a 2 bridge viola (6 string gamba) in a painting by > Timoteo > > Viti, c.1500 (Madonna and child). The blow-up clearly shows that the > smaller > > object behind the bowing bridge is a low, flat topped, plucking bridge, > > laying on it's side behind the bowing bridge and tucked under the strings > > closer to the tail. The plucking bridge has clearly defined angled tapers > > at both ends and on the underside cut-out, and has well defined flat > > bottomed feet as well. I'm guessing that neither bridge was fixed, you > just > > swap them around as desired [snip] Hello again; Ok, so, it turns out a man named "Ephraim Segerman" writes about the two bridge Viti viol in a manuscript draft now on the internet [THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN BOWED INSTRUMENTS up to the baroque: a closer look -- draft as of February 2002] located here: http://www.nrinstruments.demon.co.uk/Bowed2.html here's what Segerman has to say about it -- very similar to what I have, and seeing the same oddity I saw (two bridges). He doesn't mention it could be a conversion from an earlier 4 or 5 string though, and he's suggesting two styles of bowing on one instrument rather than pluck and bow : ". . . . A 1505 painting [illustrated in Plate 52 in Woodfield op. cit.] shows a viol with a bridge with shallow curvature parked under the strings behind a higher bridge (being used at the time) that had rather more curvature. This indicates that players exchanged bridges to play in different styles: With a higher bridge having more curvature, individual strings could be sounded separately when bowing near the bridge, and groups of strings could be sounded while bowed farther from the bridge. . . . " I've yet to learn what Woodfield's book (on early viol history) has to say about the picture. At any rate, while this separates "first discovery" from me (which wasn't the main point anyway) it confirms that at least someone writing in scholarly-like fashion on the history of early bowed string instruments is of the same opinion. Segerman also speaks matter-of-factly of the vihuela to viols connection, and even specifically singles out the "waist cut" variant of vihuela as being key. Thanks Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
