In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, some collections of lute music were published with Latin prefaces and commendatory poems (such as that huge collection of music by Laurencini et al., the title of which escapes me at the moment). If the publisher was angling for international sales, it would make sense to publish the title page, "prooemium," recommendatory and instructional material in Latin. If lute books were published in the vernacular, the publisher was, I would guess, aiming mainly at local sales. At least during the late renaissance. Dowland translated a latin work by Andreas Ornithoparcus into English, though of course that was a book of general music theory, not a work specifically treating the lute. A common word lute in renaissance Latin seems to have been testudo, -inis. Brad On 12/11/2012 06:29, Herbert Ward wrote:
According to Wikipedia, Latin was the language of scholarship, science, and internation communication until around 1725. However, I've not seen much of Latin in lute music. To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html
