ABSTRACT
It was the period of Dufay (d 1474) that saw the development of the ‘classic’ lute: a fretted, finger-plucked instrument, tuned in fourths around a third, used for polyphonic as well as monophonic playing, and associated with its own system of notation. These innovations rested upon some two hundred years of lute playing in Europe, yet many makers and players still feel that the history of the Western lute really begins with the first decades of the 16th century. 1
