LUTE

The lute is among the oldest of plucked instruments having its origin in antiquity. As early as the year 2000 BC lutes were pictured on Mesopotamian pottery. The lute came to Europe from the Arab culture towards the end of the thirteenth century but rose during the fifteenth to a position of unique importance through the end of the seventeenth. Because of its lovely sound and its enormous repertoire, it occupies a very special place of honor during our Renaissance times. It is an instrument for every walk of life, from the street minstrels to the courts of Europe. The very early Lutes had backs carved from a solid piece of wood, but in our times we use a series of separate ribs to construct the curved back. The strings are strung along the entire body, uninterrupted by any bridge. Raised lines on the fingerboard, known as frets, show the instrumentalist the location of half tones. The head of the lute is bent backward from the neck and contains the box for the pegs. There is no set number of strings.
	The theorbe or archilute is an instrument which has been modified from the lute by musicians such as Piccinini who needed more bass strings for their music. The instrument is present in iconography since the middle of the XVII th century in the whole of Europe and was an important support to the evolution of harmonic and counterpoint as well as fingerboard instruments.
Photos of Luca Pianca by courtesy of Luc Breton, instrument maker