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This particular page was created 15/12/2004 and last updated 17/05/2005
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| | Data:- Body shape: Lute
- Top: Flat
- Back: Bowl
- Frets: Tied
- Courses: 6 ( 1 or 2 - 1 or 2 - 1 or 2 - 1 or 2 - 1 or 2 - 1 or 2)
There were a number of different instruments called mandolin during the 17th and early 18th Century. The first French mandolins appeared during that period and it seems every Italian region had its own unique variant of the "proper" mandolin. (Or rather: there were different mandolins named after - not necessarily that closely connected to - different Italian regions.)
Even so, there's one mandolin that's come to be closely associated with the period, the Lombardic mandolin. This is probably the instrument Tommaso Motta mentions in his 1681 (the first known reference to the mandolin in print), it's most likely the kind Antonio Stradivarius built and it's almost certainly the instrument Vivaldi wrote his mandolin works for.
Other important Italian mandolins of the baroque period are the Cremonese mandolin (the first known mandolin to use the fifths tuning common today) and the Genovese mandolin (the first metal-strung mandolin).
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