Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

The baroque guitar in France is  a wide-ranging  subject, and  although  theses  and dissertations  have already been written about it, much still remains to be said. The following is merely a synthesis of  what seems to have been the course of the instrument in France, from the 1600s to the end of the eighteenth century.
 The four-course "Renaissance guitar" was quite well developed in France in the mid-sixteenth century, where it had reached a very high musical level, often requiring quite a skilled playing technique. But, astonishingly enough, there does not seem to be a link, in France, between this four­course guitar and the five-course instrument, the so called  "baroque  guitar". In  fact  the  latter  does  not appear  to  be  a continuation  of  its  predecessor:  it  is  like  an entirely  new  guitar,  which  continued  to  survive  for  around  two  centuries.  And  although  this  instrument's construction, stringing, technique and musical style often changed throughout these 180 or 200 years, it remained basically an instrument with five courses tuned: 4th-4th-3rd-4th...)

The baroque guitar in France,and its two main figures: Robert de Viseé and François Campion