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Wonderful. I’ve only ever seen the detail I shared above. Great to see the whole thing. It was not unknown for family faces to appear in frescos, I’m told, and there has been the assumption among viola da peña enthusiasts that likenesses of the Borgia family were used here. But if you know for certain they were not, I’ll take you at your word.
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11-23-2021 04:37 AM
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Doesn't look like any frets are on it, more like plucking a violin.
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Highly unlikely. Even viols - which family it belongs to - had frets at least up to 7th position. The frets are made of gut, and quite dark and thin, so might not be viewable in these jpgs.
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Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
I may be wrong. Some family members are portrayed in the Apartment's paintings, apparently. The vihuela de peñola probably reflects the Pope's origins in Valencia.
When the frescoes in the Apartment were restored in 2016, a painting by Pinturicchio of the Resurrection was uncovered, which includes one of the first European depictions of Native Americans.
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Obviously using a wireless connection to an amp as I don’t see a lead.
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11-23-2021, 07:48 AM #31joelf Guest
Heard about that guitar. John Dowland performed many a gig with it...
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He most certainly did not, Joel
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I agree that this instruments looks more like a soprano or alto viol being played "da mano" but that would still make it a precursor of the archtop guitar
I googled "viola peñola" and mostly got back images of instruments looking roughly like a typical vihuela but with 2 viol-like sound holes (but in mirrored orientation, as on Savall's quinton). The typical vihuela is definitely not an archtop AFAIK, but it may have an arched back ("may" as in I'm not certain). The same google search did turn up what looks like a renaissance viol with a 3rd soundhole (like some German archtops) and an arched back (long before Tielke used them in his 7-string viols).
Either way, iconography should often not be taken too literally. Not only can the person who commissioned the artwork have had special wishes (not unlike Mr. Jourdain was impartial to the trompette marine ) but the artists were probably likely to paint things they were familiar with and sometimes just got it wrong. I remember a painting showing a violin bowing position that's not entire impossible physically - but you'd have to break your wrist first
EDIT: I did never really believe that the archtop guitar is really a uniquely American invention, the very history of the instrument make that unlikely...
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RJVB, you and others might be interested in my blog post about the archtop guitar pre Loar:
Earliest Non-Gibson Archtop Guitars – ArchtopGuitar.net
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Interestingly, the sketches of the German instrument show an upper vs. lower bout proportion that's a lot like what you see in the most commonly copied early 19th C romantic guitar.
The sketches from the later, American patent look like something out of a Hieronymous Bosch painting (on steroids). That one has interesting bracing btw - 2 violin style bass bars (if you can call both of them that ).
Sadly both have probably been relegated to the realm of Didn't Work Out Or Catch On experiments...
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Plenty of those in the instruments’ graveyard. But it all helps.
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Maybe at some point, when someone digs out one of those earlier designs, updates it and then gets a hit because the time is right. Or else ... as in learning from past mistakes?
To stay on topic: how much is there really in the classical guitar as we now it today that comes from significantly different designs, or that's just qualitatively different from the archetypal design by Torres et al? The lattice top is probably an example of the latter (if you don't view it as just a somewhat different way to make a good flat top) but I don't think I've ever seen it in acoustic guitars.
Things are a bit better in this aspect in the acoustig guitar realm ... but there we're still learning from the dreaded nought-a-mistake
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Glad you qualified it as non-Gibson; otherwise, the S/N might trace to 1963 or 2004 ;-)
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