The Viola d'Amore: An Instrument Between Worlds
PART five
Medieval Ancestors
BnF, ms. lat. 8878, f. 177r.
Paris, BnF, Français 161 f.276.
this fourteenth-century illumination may depict an instrument with sympathetic strings, potentially the earliest known visual representation of such a feature.
A similar case can be observed in Paris, BnF, Français 2 f.218.
To understand how the viola d'amore fits into the grand circus of bowed instruments, we need to talk about the rebec... It is generally recognised as the ancestor of the violin.
The Spanish Connection
The first European shout-outs to bowed instruments pop up in Spain in the Mozarabic manuscript of the Apocalypse of St. John. This cheerful little tome, the San Millán Beatus circa 930 AD, somehow found time between doomsday vibes to drop a note about someone fiddlin'.
By the tenth century, the Beati in Apocalipsin libri duodecim (Vit. 14-1) shows some poor soul clinging to a large upright instrument and swishing it with a bow, likely referring to the vielle (aka fidel or viuola), a medieval fiddle. These instruments were typically played with a C-shaped bow, the go-to of the tenth century. In later versions, such as the Facundus Beatus (1047), instruments appear held upright, but apparently 'bow optional.'
Plucked versions of the instrument remained in use. Some twelfth-century Romanesque carvings show the rebab represented as both bowed and plucked (Sertkaya, 1982; Ögel, 2000).
The c.1050 Catalan Psalter, residing in the Museo Nazionale in Florence (Coll. Carrand, No. 26), offers the earliest visual evidence of the rebec. It shows a three-stringed pear-shaped ( piriform , if you're trying to impress someone who doesn't like you) instrument. This cameo predates the actual word 'rebek,' which only pops up in a twelfth-century manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Lat. 14754). That document helpfully includes a table of Arabic and Latin terms.
This reflects Mozarabic art that wandered onto the Iberian Peninsula after the eighth century and the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom.
Byzantine and Arab
By the eleventh century, the Arab rebab had become known in Spain, and bowed instruments were present in Byzantium from the eighth to ninth centuries.
Byzantine instruments could be perched on the neck, shoulder, or breast, with pegboxes that look flat and rhomboidal in the artwork. Islamic pegboxes, by contrast, bend backward, either as a deliberate flourish or a quirk of woodworking traditions. Meanwhile, Byzantine bows were straight, unlike the elegantly curved Arab bows.
By the eleventh century, the rebec had stomped across Europe, becoming a familiar sight by 1100. Its string count had started to settle into a respectable three or six, leaving behind the chaotic two- or four-strings of earlier Arab and Byzantine fiddles.
The Vihuela de Arco
When Fiddles Got Frets
While the rest of Europe fiddled around with every possible size of fidel and rebec , España was quietly running a musical experiment that would shake the history of bowed instruments.
The vihuela de arco (literally 'vihuela with bow') was the awkwardly named but pivotal missing link between medieval fiddles and the Renaissance viol family, striding onto the stage like a stringed evolutionary breakthrough.
The term vihuela crops up as early as the fourteenth century in Juan Ruiz's Libro del buen amor (Book of Good Love), where the Arcipreste de Hita muses: 'La vihuela de arco fas dulces debayladas…'
In Spain, vihuela was a label for any figure-of-eight-shaped stringed instrument, with the real distinctions coming from how you played it: vihuela de mano (plucked by hand), vihuela de péndola or peñola (plucked with a plectrum), and vihuela de arco (played with a bow).
The term 'vihuela de arco' continued in use in Spain well into the eighteenth century.
The Transitional Phase
The vihuela de arco wobbled out of the medieval fidel (fidula) and, by the early sixteenth century, had spawned a whole family of instruments, played resting on the knees or between the legs, depending on size. In Germany, these were still called fidel, though Virdung (1511) and Agricola (1529) distinguished between gross geigen (large fiddles) and klein geigen (small fiddles, or rebecs). By Agricola's time, even violins were being lumped into this terminology.
The Fret Question
The trait that ties the vihuela de arco to the Renaissance viol family is the presence of frets. Both the vihuela de arco and its plucked cousin, the vihuela de mano , sported these little pitch markers, and this would become the key distinguishing feature separating the viol family from the violin family.
In Italy, the large fretted violas (think vihuela de mano in grown-up form) were dubbed violoni , while the smaller unfretted versions, played on the arm, went by violas or violette . Giovanni Maria Lanfranco's Scintille di musica (1533) describes them as violette d’arco senza tasti (little bowed violas without frets) or violette da braccio (little arm violas). Meanwhile, Silvestro Ganassi del Fontego, in Regola Rubertina (1542–43), stuck with violette d'arco senza tasti for the small ones, and reserved viola d'arco tastada or violone d'arco da tasti for the big fretted versions; effectively spelling out which instruments got to have frets and which didn't, and leaving no one in doubt about the hierarchy of Italian violas.
Spanish Terminology
Spain, having kicked off this whole stringed chaos, naturally brewed its own tangle of terminology. By the first half of the sixteenth century, Spanish musicians had borrowed Italian labels: the big fretted violas or six-string vihuelas became violones , while the smaller, unfretted three- or four-string versions were dubbed violetas or, with extra flair, vihuelas bastardas .
Diego Ortiz, in his Tratado sobre cláusulas (Rome, 1553), rather confusingly used the term violones for vihuelas, though by that point, the label was already hopelessly antiquated. By the second half of the sixteenth century, even bigger instruments had emerged in both families, and violones had migrated up the size chart to designate these new bass monsters and contrabasses, leaving historians and musicians alike shaking their heads at yet another twist in the ever-expanding fiddle family tree.
Pedro Cerone, in his sprawling El Melopeo y Maestro (Naples, 1613), dubbed the vihuelas de brazo ( arm-held violas) vihuelas bastardas , since, unlike their fretted cousins, they came sans frets. He classified this unruly family of unfretted vihuelas bastardas into three members: alto ( violeta ), tenor ( violoncino ), and bass ( violón ), collectively labeled violones de arco to set them apart from the fretted vihuelas de arco .
Sebastián de Covarrubias, in his Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid, 1610), waded into the alphabet soup of Spanish string instruments. He defined violones as a ' Juego de vigüelas de arco sin trastes' ( that is, a set of bowed vihuelas without frets) pointing out that the treble was called a violin. Meanwhile, vihuelas de arco were the overachievers of the family, ' que se tañen con arquillo y tienen trastes' ( bowed, yes, and fretted, gracias ).
The Ávila Vihuela de Arco
One of the rare survivors of the vihuela de arco clan lounges in the Convento de la Encarnación in Ávila. This exceptional relic (scrutinised by Rafael Pérez Arroyo) offers precious physical evidence of the vihuela's construction and quirks.
The instrument skips the usual upper-bout narrowing seen on violas da gamba, giving it a less 'waisted' profile. Its soundboard sports four distinctive sound-hole cutouts: two small circles joined by an elongated diamond with gently curving sides, a motif apparently popular locally, also turning up on harps from the same convent and region.
Most intriguingly, the back has a wooden block attached, designed to hold a support spike (pica) that rested on the ground. This allowed the instrument to be played at a convenient height with an appropriate angle of inclination.
The El Greco Evidence
Visual confirmation comes courtesy of El Greco's Martirio de San Mauricio (1580), now in the Monastery of El Escorial. In the upper left corner, an angel is caught in the act of playing a vihuela de arco that matches the Ávila instrument in every telling detail. While only the back is visible, the painting makes the playing position perfectly clear: unlike a viola da gamba tucked between the legs, the angel's right knee is kicked back, and the instrument rests on the ground at precisely the angle suggested by the support block on the surviving Ávila vihuela.
Number of Strings and Tuning
Early sixteenth-century violas typically sported five or six strings, with six becoming the standard by mid-century. In France, Philibert Jambe de Fer’s Epitome Musical (1556) describes violas with five strings tuned in fourths, whereas Italian instruments were already leaning toward six. Jean Rousseau’s Traité de la Viole (1687) confirms that French violas originally carried five very thick strings (E–A–D–G–C) and were impressively large basses. He notes that the shape evolved over time and a sixth string was eventually added, rounding out the instrument's capabilities.
In Spain, due to the close relationship with the vihuela de mano, the instrument likely had five strings initially before levelling up to six, or both were used interchangeably. Cerone breaks it down in Melopeo y Maestro (1613), talking about tuning starting from the sixth string, while vihuelas de brazo had 'only three strings (except the bass which has four).'
Pablo Nasarre's Escuela Música (Zaragoza, 1724) states that the vihuela has five strings, while the violón has four strings like the violin.
Tuning Controversies
Two main schools of thought emerged among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theorists regarding viol tuning:
Lanfranco 1533, Ganassi 1542, Cerreto, Mersenne, Playford, Simpson, Talbot:
Soprano: D-G-C-E-A-D Tenor: G-C-F-A-D-G Bass: D-G-C-E-A-D
Zacconi 1592, Banchieri 1609, Cerone 1613, Praetorius 1619:
Soprano: D-G-D-G-B-D Tenor: G-C-G-C-E-G Bass: C-F-C-F-A-C
Gerald Hayes suggested it reflects the complete absence of standard pitch. Praetorius (yes, that Praetorius, of Viola Bastarda fame) was even more candid, noting that viols were tuned a fourth or a fifth higher or lower and read a fourth or a fifth higher or lower depending on the situation, which, translated from musicologist into English, means: everyone did whatever they liked and wrote it down later.
Nasarre at least tried to bring some order to the Spanish end of the madhouse. He explains that the sixth string sat a fourth below the fifth, the fifth a fourth below the fourth, the fourth a third below the third, the second a fourth above the third, and the first yet another fourth above the second, resulting in the top string landing a full fifteenth above the bottom one. Clear as mud, perhaps, but in the context of early string tuning this counts as an heroic attempt.
Nasarre notes that the vihuela was tuned like the five-string Spanish guitar, while the violón was tuned like the violin in superimposed fifths. The Spanish five-string guitar tuning resulted from adding a fifth string a fourth below the lowest string of the four-string guitar: G-C-F-A-D. During the seventeenth century, this pattern rose a tone, by 1677 Ribayaz locks it in, stamps it official: A-D-G-B-E.
Medieval Descriptions
In thirteenth-century France, some geezer named Jerome of Moravia wrote the Tractatus de Musica (c.1280), in which he describes the rubeba as a bowed instrument with two strings tuned a fifth apart. At this time in France, the vielle was the prevailing bowed instrument, and Pietro d'Abano further described this rubeba in 1310 in his Expositio Problematum Aristotelis .
By the late fourteenth century, the Tunisian scholar Ibn Khaldun mentions the rebab in his Muqaddimah , describing it as a bowed instrument with two strings.
Where Have All the Rebecs Gone?
No historical specimens from the medieval period have survived to the present day. Even Renaissance examples are rare. One notable survival is the rebecchino in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inventory no. 433), an elaborately decorated fifteenth-century example of possibly Venetian origin.
Physical Construction: The Bowl-Shaped Wonder
The rebec itself has a bowl-shaped body carved from a single piece of wood that's scooped and chiselled out. It was typically played on the shoulder or chest, depending on personal preference or possibly regional custom. Agricola's depiction shows it with three strings, each tuned a fifth apart. Notably, Agricola is the first to document that the instrument came in different sizes: discantus, altus, tenor, and bassus.
Etymology
The term 'rebec' derives from variations across languages. French sources cheerfully scatter it across the page as rebebe , reberbe , and rebesbe ; English did the same dance with ribibe , ribible , rubebe , rubible , and rybybe .
The term rebec never bothered to show up in Latin. In Byzantium, the thing was sensibly called a lyra , but once it wandered west across Europe it promptly reinvented itself as rebec, a name nicked from the Arabic rebâb , rabâb , rubeba , rubeb , rebecca , and rebeccum . In other words, yet another case of medieval Europe borrowing an instrument, borrowing the name, mangling the spelling, and then pretending it had been there all along.
These terms persist today: the rabeca folk fiddle of Portugal, whilst rabâb and lyra instruments are still used in North Africa and the Balkans.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, variations emerged: rabec, rebequin, rabecca, rebicchino, and rebekke. The r-b-c form of the word could have originated from a shortened form of rabé griego , referring to the Greek lyra.
Chaucer Weighs In
Even Chaucer had it on his radar. Back in in The Canterbury Tales, he gives the rubible a straight name-drop, letting us know this little fiddle was part of the medieval soundtrack:
And pleyen songes on a small rubible;
Thereto he song somtyme a loud quynyble;
And wel he koude pleye on a gyterne.
Playing Position
Up, Down, or Sideways?
In Europe, the instrument quickly abandoned the oriental habit of lounging about on the lap or left leg and was hoisted upwards onto the breast, shoulder, or neck. Byzantium, characteristically, did both.
You can spot the difference immediately in the pictures.
In the Cantigas de Santa Maria miniatures they serenely play the thing pointing downwards, very much as intended. North of the Pyrenees, however, rebec-type instruments are hauled upwards, signalling that the instrument had crossed a cultural border.
Ger. c, 1175 BL
Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, 1029, f. 001
MSS M.917/945, f. 108v
Nice, Bibliothèque municipale, 1 (R. 3), f. 134
British Library ms add. 19352 f.191r. 11th century.
The Aragonese Factor
Spanish culture and art were isolated from the rest of Europe for several centuries, developing unique features whilst everyone else was doing Romanesque things. However, as Ian Woodfield writes, the Kingdom of Aragon was the primary region where use of the rebab remained endemic.
This kingdom, centred in Aragon in northeastern Spain, extended its influence over a much wider area: from southern France to the País Valencià and beyond in Spain, through the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and the Kingdom of Naples in Italy, reaching Sicily. This is essentially half the Mediterranean, which means the Aragonese were rather good at spreading their musical preferences along with their political influence.
This broad area of influence played a role in the history of bowed instruments in Europe, suggesting that the rebec's survival and evolution owed as much to Aragonese political expansion as to its musical merits.
