What is a Vihuela ?

 

The Vihuela was pre-eminent among instruments of the guitar class in Renaissance times. Althought it is convinient to use the term vihuela to indicate one instrument, it was originally employed in a general senses, and specific instruments were referred to as vihuela de arco (a bowed form), vihuela de la penola (play with a plectrum) and vihuela de la mano (plucked with the fingers). The first two names can be found in medieval sources, but the third has not been traced back further than the late fifteenth century. In sixteenth century, however, the plucked form had become so well established in Spain that vihuela alone was sufficient identification. It is true that Luis Milan uses the full form on the title page of  El Maestro (1536), but the vihuelistas who followed him found this an unnecessary practice, and de mano did not appear in the titles of their books of music.

It will be convenient to begin consideration of the vihuela by quoting Johanes Tinctoris, who in 1487 described an instrument :

" Invented by the Spanish, which both the and the Italian calls viola, but the French the demi-luth. This viola differs from the lute in that the lute is much larger and tortoise-shape while the viola is flat, and in most cases curved inwards on each side."

Tinctoris also comments that :

" While some play every sort of composition delightfully on the lute, in Italia and Spain the viola without bow is more often used."

It is not surprising to find a Spanish instrument in use in Italy, as at this time there was a taste for things Spanish there. This was the result of Spanish rule in Naples, and even at the Borgias, as Jacob Burckhardt relates :

" Are no more Italian than the house of Naples. Alexander spoke Spanish in public with Cesare; Lucrezia, at her entrance to Ferrara, where she wore a Spanish costume, was sang to by Spanish buffoons.

(Source: The Guitar from the Renaissance to the Present Day, Harvey Turnbull)