CHAPTER 3: History to 1800

3.5 The Baroque, Rococo and Classical Periods 1600-1800

3.5.1 The west

1.2. Higher cultures in the 17th & 18th centuries: Romance language-area

Instruments: Characteristics of 17th & 18thC. salterii and psaltérions

How much information is there?
Makers and places
Changes within the period
Shape and size
Box construction
Decoration
Bridging
Stringing
Ditals
Hammers

[153c]

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fig. 85: ditals
Verschuere Reynvaan

Ditals

As with the popular instruments of this era, ditals are occasionally to be seen, notably in Verschuere Reynvaan's engraving, but they are nevertheless still very much a rarity. As mentioned above it was not possible to inspect the Leipzig example of Franciosi's device.

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fig. 96: 18thC. hammers,
and LaBorde's illustration of hammering,
MHM Stockholm
(photo Henry Ragnarsson)

Hammers

It is understandably quite rare to discover a dulcimer with its hammers intact; surviving hammers, and those in the various engravings suggest that they were normally turned rather finely on a lathe - see fig. 85 above.