----- Original Message ----- From: "Alexander Batov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "lute list" <[email protected]> Cc: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 6:03 AM Subject: Re: Widening the net -- Viola da Braccio
> > Thanks very much for placing the whole picture. That's the trouble with CD > covers sometimes that the pictures are not credited. I have a similar case > with one of Bartolomeo Bettera's paintings to track down ... so far without > luck ... > > I know what you mean about "straight perpendicular" frets on the instrument > depicted, but it does seem that they were not always arranged in a fan-like > manner. There is a painting in Louvre (attributed to Frans II, le Jeune, > c.1581 - 1642) which shows what looks like an orpharion with parallel frets > (and bridge and nut for that matter). Here is a fragment of that painting: > www.vihuelademano.com/current/pages/orpharion.htm > > Alexander I'm sold ;') Corrections made, and picture added. Thanks. here's the most recent addition to the viola da braccio group, a definate, small, fretted, 5 stringer, Italian etching, 1544 http://www.thecipher.com/braccio_7Arts1544.jpg http://www.thecipher.com/braccio_7Arts1544det.jpg if one is not willing to give the benifit of doubt to the violins ever time, there are actually tons of likely prospects out there (I'm seeing now) but many are just a little too fuzzy to say for sure. But when you see enough of them you know darn well what they are even if you can't "proove it" ;') I'm really starting to believe someone's been sold a bill of goods, big time. This guy has an interesting reproduction viola da braccio. http://www.liuteria-antica.com/renainstruments.html#Hieronymus%20Brensius%20 Bononiensis bigger http://www.liuteria-antica.com/available_instruments.html he says; . . ."A five string instrument made after an original of Hieronymus Brensius Bononiensis, Bologna, 16th Century, conserved in Museo Civico Medievale in Bologna, Italy. . . Comparing with a violin it has a closer sound to viola da gamba and can be easly used for singers accompaniment. . . " It looks and sounds like a viola da gamba because it _is_ a viola da gamba played on the arm -- fer Christ's sake! this guy, by the way, is the only person I've seen yet ascribing and associating the right instrument to the name. so when you see this documented instrument (shape contours, neck width and neck length, overall size, etc), and then go back and look at 16th century iconography again, at all those would-be violins and "violas" from between 1540 and 1590, a heck of a lot can get called into question -- _if_ you're not needing to see violins everywhere you look. Also, with this instrument, you'd only see 2 pegs on the normal viewers side. Give special attention to the exact shape of the C holes on this instrument, you'll see them quite a bit, e.g. like this one http://www.thecipher.com/braccio_stadtgeiger1569sm.jpg And as I've noted on the main page; small sound holes at all four corners, whatever their shape, are another vihuela/viol family tip-off (when in doubt). and so it goes . . . thanks again for the Opharion Alexander Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
