Hi Eugene,
Another totally speculative possibility are the 5- to 7-course lute-
sized things built to very deliberately mirror the aesthetics of
18th-c. 5- and 6-course mandolini. I've raised them here in the
past and they have gotten some decent speculative chat; that should
be archived and searchable. I'm particularly fond of Martin's
speculation, and it makes a nice parallel of "leuto/liuto" as a
late-baroque-but-renaissance-like incarnation of "archlute light."
See:
<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg20311.html>
I too am rather fascinated by these instruments. Morey and Tyler
seem to mostly
lump them together with mandoras/gallichones. I like Martin's well-
informed
speculation too.
Much earlier than Presbler, et al, I'm very much taken by the six-
course 1652
Matteo Sellas instrument in Paris (D.E.CI 7688). The museum calls it a
"Mandoline", probably because of the sickle-shaped pegbox. Is it
wrong to
lust after such things? :-)
Eric
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