One of the earliest representations (fig. 4) of a guitar in Western Europe occurs in a Passionale from Zwifalten A.D. 1180, now in the Royal Library at Stuttgart.[15] St Pelagia seated on an ass holds a rotta, or cithara in transition, while one of the men-servants leading her ass holds her guitar. Both instruments have three strings and the characteristic guitar outline with incurvations, the rotta differing in having no neck. Mersenne[16] writing early in the 17th century describes and figures two Spanish guitars, one with four, the other with five strings; the former had a cittern head, the latter the straight head bent back at an obtuse angle from the neck, as in the modern instrument; he gives the Italian, French and Spanish tablatures which would seem to show that the guitar already enjoyed a certain vogue in France and Italy as well as in Spain. Mersenne states that the proportions of the guitar demand that the length of the neck from shoulder to nut shall be equal to the length of the body from the centre of the rose to the tail end. From this time until the middle of the 19th century the guitar enjoyed great popularity on the continent, and became the fashionable instrument in England after the Peninsular War, mainly through the virtuosity of Ferdinand Sor, who also wrote compositions for it. This popularity of the guitar was due less to its merits as a solo instrument than to the ease with which it could be mastered sufficiently to accompany the voice. The advent of the Spanish guitar in England led to the wane in the popularity of the cittern, also known at that time in contradistinction as the English or wire-strung guitar, although the two instruments differed in many particulars. As further evidence of the great popularity of the guitar all over Europe may be instanced the extraordinary number of books extant on the instrument, giving instructions how to play the guitar and read the tablature.[17]
(K. S.)
[1] Über den Bau der Bogeninstrumente (Jena, 1828), pp. 94 and 95.
[2] See Pietro Millioni, Vero e facil modo d’ imparare a sonare et accordare da se medesimo la chitarra spagnola, with illustration (Rome, 1637).
[3] Declaracion de instrumentos musicales (Ossuna, 1555), fol. xciii. b and fol. xci. a. See also illustration of vihuela da mano.
[4] See also G. G. Kapsperger, Libro primo di Villanelle con l’ infavolutura del chitarone et alfabeto per la chitarra spagnola (three books, Rome, 1610-1623).
[5] See Kathleen Schlesinger, The Instruments of the Orchestra, part ii. “Precursors of the Violin Family,” pp. 230-248.
[6] See Denon’s Voyage in Egypt (London, 1807, pl. 55).
[7] Illustrated from a drawing in Perrot and Chipiez, “Judée Sardaigne, Syrie, Cappadoce.” Vol. iv. of Hist. de l’art dans l’antiquité, Paris, 1887, p. 670. Also see plate from a photograph by Prof. John Garstang, in Kathleen Schlesinger, op. cit.