The mystery of gut bass strings in the 16th and 17th centuries: The role of loaded gut

 

(Vol. XXIX n° 2, May 1994, ‘Lute Society of America Quarterly’, pp.5-14)

translated from the Italian original by Ivo Magherini

Among the hypotheses conceived by scholars about the possible manufacturing processes employed by 16th and 17th centuries string makers to produce all-gut bass strings, that of loading the gut by means of appropriate treatments deserves serious consideration, on the ground of direct and indirect confirmations at our disposal. This confirmations homogeneously coming from different fields, each on its own account, allow us to sketch an altogether sufficiently clear picture of how, in the 2nd half of the 16th century and for over a hundred years, the problem of acoustical performance of all-gut bass strings could have been solved by...