Chitarra battente
Alternate name(s)
- Guitar
Date1680-1730 ca.
Place MadeItaly, Europe
Serial No.none
SignedBranded on lower rib, below left-facing bird mounted on three stones, enclosed in foliate decorative shield: GMarkingsPaper lining of body printed with Latin text
Written in black ink on small paper label (Gary M. Stewart): .G / M / 89. S
DescriptionThe guitarra battente was a type of wire-strung guitar that become widely used in the eighteenth century. Many earlier gut-strung instruments were also converted to accomodate this fashion, including shortening the neck, creating a bend in the top like found on the Neapolitan mandolin, and attaching the metal strings to pins in the lower rib. While the maker of this instrument has not yet been identified, it bears a brand similar to those found on several other Italian guitars, each with initials ending in G.
Stringing: five steel courses, the lower four triple and the upper one double
Top: two-piece spruce: fine grain; joint is on bass third of top; wood of top extends 52 mm over neck; inlaid with single strips of bone and black-stained brown hardwood at edge; bend just behind bridge position
Back: arched shape with 17 fluted yew ribs interspersed with black-stained brown hardwood strips; inside of back lined with paper printed with Latin text
Ribs: 7 yew ribs interspersed with black-stained brown hardwood strips; ribs divided at endpin yew strip surrounded on each side by black-stained brown hardwood; holes drilled in ribs at narrowest point on each side; five iron wire string hooks set into rib near joint with top
Head: poplar with ebony veneer and ebony and bone vine marquetry on face, ebony and bog oak and bone checkerboard marquetry on back; hole drilled through head at upper end
Neck: poplar; veneered with bog oak and bone checkerboard marquetry surrounded on each side by black wood and bone reverse color purfling strips and ebony bands at edge
Fingerboard: black oak with single bone strip inlay at each side; 10 brass bar frets
Nut: bone; later by Gary Stewart
Bridge: black-stained maple; later bone saddle by Gary Stewart; evidence of moustaches, now missing; later
Pegs: 14 ebony with integral pins; later by Gary Stewart
End button: medium brown hardwood, broken off at rib surface; remains of tan, fibrous material affixed to joint with rib
Rose: five-tiered parchment rose with leather sides; painted orange and gold; parchment possibly recycled as some red lines not corresponding with pattern are visible under paint
Rosette: mother-of-pearl ovals and diamonds set in black mastic, surrounded with bone and black-stained hardwood strips, with additional black-stained brown hardwood and bone ring outside central rosette; soundhole edge bevelled and stained black
Neck block: probably poplar, 2mm thick two iron nails with round heads through neck block into neck heel
End block: probably poplar, 2mm thick
Top braces: pine fillet, 25 by 13 by 3 mm at joint between neck block and top; two roughly cut pine ladder braces with tapered ends, 10 mm above and 25 mm below soundhole; bars 25 mm high at center, 6 mm high at ends, 8 mm wide at joint with top, and 3 mm wide on other end
Top decoration: Bone, mother-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell floral inlay set in black mastic inlaid in top between bridge and lower end of guitar
DimensionsOverall length: 922 mm
Body length: 450 mm
Upper bout width: 203 mm
Center bout width: 174 mm
Lower bout width: 241 mm
Neck length: 264 mm
Neck width at nut: 46 mm
Neck width at body: 53 mm
Head length: 205 mm
Head width at nut: 55 mm
Head width at top: 54 mm
Head depth: 12.5 mm
Body depth at neck heel: 72 mm
Body depth at center bout: 124 mm
Body depth at end: 81 mm
Rose diameter: 77.9 mm
Vibrating string length: 690 mm
ProvenancePurchased in 1984 from Bernhard von Hünerbein, Cologne, Germany.
Published ReferencesAndré P. Larson, “Early Italian Plucked Stringed Instruments at the Shrine to Music Museum,” Lute Society of America Newsletter, Vol. XX, No. 1 (February 1985), p. 9.
Credit LineBoard of Trustees, 1984
Object number03452
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