ABSTRACT
C onfusion surrounds the identity of the gittern and citole. Whilst it is generally agreed that the citole was the ancestor of the Renaissance cittern and that the gittern was related to the Renaissance guitar (but perhaps not so closely as the vihuela), there is disagreement when it comes to identifying pictures and sculptures of the two instruments. Most writers on instruments distinguish two types of gittern: (I) the guitarra latina, having either the outline of a Renaissance vihuela or one with various projections (e.g. the illustrations in Galpin’s Old English Instruments of Music on Plate 7 and Fig. 15) which in some cases resembles a holly-leaf; (2) the guitarra morisca, identified either as a tambura (long-necked lute, colascione) or as an early name of the mandora (short-necked lute, usually with sickle-shaped pegbox). Opinions differ, however, regarding the citole. On the one hand, Galpin and Sachs 1 describe it as having a pear-shaped body with flat back, similar to the Renaissance cittern (Galpin gives two illustrations, Figs 3 and 4 in his book). On the other hand, Cousscmaker (in an article which deserves to be more widely read because of the interesting materials it uses) identifies it as the instrument with the ‘holly-leaf shape; 2 a similar interpretation was later given by Emanuel Winternitz, 3 who uses the term cittern rather than citole. Thus, there are conflicting attitudes: one man’s gittern is another man’s citole. This article attempts to clarify the matter.
