Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

Gresham College was founded in 1597 and has been providing free lectures within the City of London for over 400 years. This is part of the series: For Courtesan, Queen and Gallant: The Guitar in England from Henry VIII to Samuel Pepys

The courts of James I and his son Charles I were more cosmopolitan than their Elizabethan forebears. Many courtiers had now visited the Continent in early adulthood with a tutor, mostly after a period of residence at a university.

The guitar at the English court entered a new and very lively phase, as sketched in a scenery design by Inigo Jones and played in a masque by a leading court musician. On the verge of the Civil War, the guitar rapidly became the fashionable instrument of elite London from Covent Garden to Westminster.

The Guitar in the Age of Charles I