I found something surprising in the materials at this site you-all have been pointing to the last couple days. http://www.sociedaddelavihuela.com/publicaciones/pubindex.php
There's a picture inside the PDF (on that page) of a plucked vihuela-viola that looks amazingly similar to one of Gaudenzio Ferrari's 1535 (Saronno Cathedral) bowed arm-violas, closer than any other instrument, plucked or bowed, I've ever seen to date. Compare these two instruments, they're almost identical in size and contour. http://tinyurl.com/a486p The back-story on this is that I've been challenging the notion that the grouping containing that bowed viola, which is universally held to be the first documented instance of a complete "violin family" in iconography, is actually a consort of viols, or at minimum _some_ are viols. this grouping http://www.thecipher.com/braccio_GFerrari_Saronno_1536_family_deta.jpg The bass instrument is clearly a viol, not a cello. See the width of the neck at nut and bridge, and also note the fact that it has frets! This, they claim, is a three string proto-cello, hence a complete family of violins. http://www.thecipher.com/braccio_GFerrari_Saronno_1536_cello-not_deta.jpg I've already been tearing apart the arm-viol from a few different angles, making the case that it's just as likely a small thin-ribbed viol played on the arm (da braccio) as it is a three string violin (which it would have to be at that early date, 1535), and there are in fact _four_ peg dowels visible within and peg-box http://www.thecipher.com/braccio_GFerrari_Saronno_1536_viola_det1.jpg and Martin Agricola documwents a whole family of 4 string lute-tuned viols http://www.thecipher.com/agricola_4string-lute-fiddles2_deta.jpg but this new image really tips the scales in the bowed vihuela-viola direction, a perfect match if ther ever was one. The Ferrari arm viola, it's unique shape, had been one of those "one-offs", a very odd ball indeed, until just now. Anyhow, can anyone help identify the image of the relief carved plucked viola-vihuela, approximate date and place? Thanks Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
