Citole

  1. Lia le Citolur
    Lia le Citolur
    Hi there

    I have been trying to figure out if mandolins are descended from the citole. Can any one suggest a good resource to look this trivia up?

    -Lia
  2. billkilpatrick
    in the broadest terms, i'd say yes - it is descended from the citole. there's a lot of information on the instrument (on-line) but nothing i found linked it directly. in terms of construction, the charango is an interesting "cousin" but nothing - inmho - compares to the mandolin. as for owning a bona fide replica instrument, costing heaps - my own "eureka!" moment happened when i realized, even if i had one, i wouldn't enjoy or play it half as much as the mandolin.

    - bill
  3. Mike-D
    Mike-D
    Certainly there is a family resemblance. The citoles are often shown with four strings, are of similar size, have a floating bridge etc. Only one instrument survives, the Warwick Castle "gittern". and it was converted to a violin. They are definitely from the same family tree but the connection is not so direct.

    The best site online is Paul Butler's Citole project: http://www.crab.rutgers.edu/~pbutler/citole.html

    I have a Parma Baptistry style citole under construction, but I haven't been working on it in a while.

    Mike D
  4. Simen Kjaersdalen
    Simen Kjaersdalen
    It's an interesting question when did the mandolin actually bacome the mandolin? No one !invented" it, like the saxophone, but it gradually developed. If we look for small pear-shaped instruments that was plucked, we will find very mandolin-like instruments even in the antique. If we look for tuning in fifths, that seems to be a more modern idea, inspired from the violin, I think. The name mandoline goes to mandolino, mandore, mandola. And then there is also the history of pøsying-technique and music. So this is really an "everything is connected to everything" issue...
  5. Dusepo
    Dusepo
    Yes and no. The citole is more closely related to the cittern family, and the closest medieval instrument to a mandolin would be the gittern. So, related but distantly.
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