= marked on the fingerboard by little metal From Juan Bermudo.
other evidence. As the Arab kuitra was known to be played by means of a quill, we shall not be far wrong in identifying it with the vihuela da penola. The word vihuela or vigola is connected with the Latin fidicula or fides, a stringed instrument mentioned by Cicero 1 as being made from the wood of the plane-tree and having many strings. The remaining link in the chain of identification is afforded by St Isidore, bishop of Seville in the 7th century, who states that fidicula was another name for cithara, "Veteres aut citharas fidicula vel fidice nominaverunt." 2 The fidicula therefore was the cithara, either in its original classical form or in one of the transitions which transformed it into the guitar. The existence of a superior guitarra latina side by side with the guitarra morisca is thus explained. It was derived directly from the classical cithara introduced by the Romans into Spain, the archetype of the structural beauty which formed the basis of the perfect proportions and delicate structure of the violin. In an inventory 3 made by Philip van Wilder of the musical instruments which had belonged to Henry VIII. is the following item bearing on the question: "foure gitterons with iiii. cases they are called Spanishe Vialles." Vial or viol was the English equivalent of vihuela. The transitions whereby the cithara acquired a neck and became a guitar are shown in the miniatures (fig. 3) of a single MS., the celebrated Utrecht Psalter, which gave rise to so many discussions. The Utrecht Psalter was executed in the diocese of Reims in the 9th century, and the miniatures, drawn by an AngloSaxon artist attached to the Reims school, are unique, and illustrate a b c d FIG. 3. - Instrumentalists from the Utrecht Psalter, 9th century: (a) The bass rotta, first transition of cithara in (C); (b, c, d), Transitions showing the addition of neck to the body of the cithara.
the Psalter, psalm by psalm. It is evident that the Anglo-Saxon artist, while endowed with extraordinary talent and vivid imagination, drew his inspiration from an older Greek illustrated Psalter from the Christian East,' where the evolution of the guitar took place.
One of the earliest representations (fig. 4) of a guitar in Western Europe occurs in a Passionale from Zwifalten A.D. I 180, now in the 1 De natura deorum, ii. 8, 22.
2 See Etymologiarium, lib. iii., cap. 21.
See British Museum, Harleian MS. 1419, fol. 200.
4 The literature of the Utrecht Psalter embraces a large number of books and pamphlets in many languages of which the principal are here given: Professor J. O. Westwood, Facsimiles of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS. (London, 1868); Sir Thos. Duffus-Hardy, Report on the Athanasian Creed in connection with the Utrecht Psalter (London, 1872); Report on the Utrecht Psalter, addressed to the Trustees of the British Museum (London, 1874); Sir Thomas Duffus-Hardy, Further Report on the Utrecht Psalter (London, 1874); Walter de Gray Birch, The History, Art and Palaeography of the MS. styled the Utrecht Psalter (London, 1876); Anton Springer, "Die Psalterillustrationen im frahen Mittelalter mit besonderer Rt.icksicht auf den Utrecht Psalter," Abhandlungen der kgl. sachs. Ges. d. Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse, Bd. viii. pp. 187296, with 10 facsimile plates in autotype from the MS.; Adolf Goldschmidt, "Der Utrecht Psalter," in Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft, Bd. xv. (Stuttgart, 1892), pp. 156-166; Franz Friedrich Leitschuh, Geschichte der karolingischen Malerei, ihr Bilderkreis and seine Quellen (Berlin, 18 94), pp. 321-330; Adolf Goldschmidt, Der Albani Psalter in Hildesheim, &c. (Berlin, 1895); Paul Durrieu, L'Origine du MS. celbbre dit le Psaultier d'Utrecht (Paris, 1895); Hans Graeven, "Die Vorlage des Utrecht Psalters," paper read before the XI. International Oriental Congress, Paris, 1897. See also Repertorium fiir Kunstwissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1898), Bd. xxi. pp. 28-35; J. J. Tikkanen, Abendlcindische Psalter-Illustration im Mittelalter, part iii. "Der Utrecht Psalter" (Helsingfors, 1900), 320 pp. and 77 ills. (Professor Tikkanen now accepts the Greek or Syrian origin of the Utrecht Psalter); Georg Swarzenski, "Die karolingische Malerei and Plastik in Reims," in Jahrbuch d. kgl. preussischen Kunstsammlungen, Bd. xxiii. (Berlin, 1902), pp. 81-ioo; Ormonde M. Dalton, "The Crystal of Lothair," in Archdologie, vol. lix. (1904); Royal Library at Stuttgart.' 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 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 hack 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 From Dr H. proportions of the guitar Malerei. demand that the length FIG. 4. - Representation of a European of the neck from shoulder Guitar. A.D. 1180.
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. ? (K. S.)
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