Fernando Marín - Cabezon, Ganassi, Ortiz: The Art of the Vihuela de Arco (2017)

The vihuela de arco (bowed vihuela) was one of the most widely used musical instruments in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries and the predecessor of most modern European bowed instruments. Johannes Tinctoris, at the end of the 15th century, attributed Spanish origin (‘hispanorum’) to the viola de arco in order to distinguish its specific typology from the rest of European violas of the period (De inventione et usu musicae, Nápoles, 1481-83, l. iv). At first, these instruments had fewer strings, they were polyvalent, their origins go back to the Middle Ages. In the Iberian Peninsula we find the oldest and most diverse models, such as those with a flat bridge, double bridge or da braccio position. […]