THE Quinterna or Chiterna, the Italian guitar, was formerly used by the humbler order of musicians. According to Engel, it had three pairs of catgut strings and two single strings covered with wire, and was played guitar-lute fashion with the fingers, and not with a plectrum. But the instrument here drawn, with its ten wire strings, must have been played with a plectrum in cither fashion. It was exhibited by Mr. George Donaldson in the Music Loan Collection at the Royal Albert Hall as a Giterna, an obvious variant of the name. Two views of it are here given. It is of tortoiseshell with arabesques of ivory and a carved ebony head, the back being of ebony and ivory. In length it is 24½ inches, and the neck, measured from the body, is 14 inches. The words, "Joachim Tielke Hamburg fecit, 1676," are inscribed on the back of the instrument; the date, however, suggests a considerable discrepancy when compared with the Quinterna in South Kensington Museum, by Joachim Tielke, 1539. Engel supposes that this famous maker's name was continued through several generations, to account for the difference in dates. Evelyn, visiting Pozzuoli in 1645, says, "The country-people so jovial and addicted to musiq, that the very husbandmen almost universaly play on the guitarr, singing and composing songs in praise of their sweet-heartes." This guitar would be the Quinterna. The Mandoline drawn, also Mr. Donaldson's, is by Domenico Vinaccia, dated Napoli, 1780, and is of tortoiseshell and mother of pearl, with a beautiful pear-shaped back or shell. It is 22 inches long, the neck and head being 11 inches.

The Mandoline (Italian Mandolino) is smaller than the Mandora, a kind of alto lute. It is strung with catgut and wire, the bass strings being of catgut covered with silver wire, and is played with a plectrum. Of several kinds, including the Mandore, Mandurina, and Pandurina, that have been used in Italy, the Milanese and Neapolitan Mandolines are the best known. The Milanese Mandoline, with five or six pairs of strings, preserves old cither tunings; the Neapolitan Mandoline, which is really an eighteenth-century instrument, is evidently of later introduction, as it is tuned in fifths similar to a violin, which makes performance upon it easily attainable by violin players. Mozart wrote the serenade in Don Giovanni with an accompaniment for it, but beautiful as this composition is, the accompaniment appears scarcely characteristic of the Mandoline or of the Bandurria either—a small kind of Spanish guitar of deeper pitch than the Mandoline, which, for local colour, would have been the right instrument. These instruments, like the Dulcimer, make their characteristic effects by means of the reiteration of notes, analogous to what is called "repetition" on a pianoforte, the intention being to convey an impression of sustained sound, and make the melody prominent when several other instruments are being played.

The accordance of the Neapolitan Mandoline is—

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of the Milanese Mandoline of five notes—

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of the Milanese Mandoline of six notes—

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and of the Bandurria—

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the three higher notes being here of catgut—the lower of silk overspun with metal. The Bandurria, like the Mandolines, is played with a plectrum, called in Spanish "Pua," which is prevented from defacing the wood by the presence of a tortoiseshell plate, let into the sound-board. The plectrum is usually a small piece of tortoiseshell or quill.

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