CHAPTER 3: History to 1800 > Early Renaissance - 15th century
Illustrations - 15 of 15
Type 2 - two bridges
Two final points require to be made about type 2 in the 15th century: firstly that the sources for it date from the same time as types 0 and 1, so that even though it may seem to be a more complex development, that development was taking place at the same time as the simpler instruments were still being played: there are 9 examples of type 0, bridgeless, 3 of single-bridged instruments and 5 of what we might tentatively call the dolce melos, type 2.
Examples of treble strings divided by more than one bridge are very rare after 1500: the instruments portrayed by Tobias Stimmer and Gerhard de Jode (f igs. 50, 51) are exceptions, while another fascinating account of such a tuning comes from Nierop in 1659; it is also a feature of a few courses of the Schunda cimbalom (fig. 213) and Reynyaan's Hakbord (fig.85).
There remain four examples of which, for a variety of reasons. it has not been possible to obtain reproductions, so that they could not be included in this brief survey of types, viz:
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