"The Guitar in Italy: From the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century" by Lorenzo Frignani, Anna Radice and Tiziano Rizzi

From the authors:

The guitar has existed over many centuries, it is widespread almost all over the world and many are its shapes and characteristics. It is difficult to identify where and how it all started but it is certainly easy to recognize a guitar today, whether it be classical, folk or electric. Debating about its journey from its origins to today may be quite challenging, as it is has traversed various geographical areas and has been used in a variety of musical settings that range from the classical concert hall to the overwhelming rock stage of a stadium, from Alonso Mudarra to Francesco Corbetta, Fernando Sor to Andres Segovia, Woody Guthrie to Jimmy Hendrix... The same can be said of the variety of its builders: from Belchior Dias to Alexaner Voboam, Gaetano Guadagnini to Antonio de Torres, Christian Friederich Martin to Leo Fender... in every case it is still "the guitar" we're talking about!

For this publication we have established both historical and geographical limits. From the historical point of view we will talk about the guitar from the time the it was fitted with 6 single strings, from the last decades of the 18th to the first of the 19th centuries. From the geographical point of view we will consider the instruments used in the areas where we can witness, more than in others, the largest innovations in construction techniques and strong "localized" characteristics.

The historical era is what highlights the transformation of the guitar used in the baroque period from 5 courses (double strings) to 6 single strings. This change is not due to a specific invention but to a succession of transformations. For instance the 5 course guitar was used at the end of its journey with single strings; there was then a short period when it was specifically built with 5 single strings and only later would get the 6th one to become the instrument that, with few variations, maintains to this day this characteristic and tuning. In this historical context, we have located 4 geographical areas where the production of guitars has been more widespread and where some characteristics, which will be later described, identify the different areas: Piedmontese, Lombard, Tuscan-Emilian and Neapolitan. For each one of these we have taken into consideration 6 or 7 guitars made by the most important luthiers, and for each of them additional information is given. There is a data sheet with two pictures that depicts the whole instrument, as to give the most information possible, where the instrument's main data and its present characteristics can be found. A table then shows the main measurements attached to a graphic representation of the outlines of the instrument: front, side and back. In the end some pictures show the details and the internal parts where possible, for example the bracing, the label, the tail block, reinforcements, etc.

We have tried to highlight those particulars not easily visible through the observation from the outside that have arisen during restorations. The instruments present in this book have been studied, examined and restored by Lorenzo Frignani, Anna Radice and Tiziano Rizzi.

The idea for this work was born thanks to a synergy of interests, a comparison of professional experiences and the necessity to provide the restoration of historical instruments according to conservative criteria and their possible funcitonal recovery as cultural and historical heritage to be protected and safeguarded. This publicatioin is therefore the result of our meetings, discussions, analysis and comparisons. Unlike most of the publications about guitars, which generally provide historical-musical information, we focused on the technical, organological and luthieristic aspects based on the information retrieved during restoration work on the guitars.

Today a small webcam suitably modified is enough to inspect the inside of a guitar, but when you have the opportunity to "open" an instrument, many details (traces of the tools used, previous repair work, burns, different types of glues, etc.) can be noticed to help us understand what was the working environment, the style and the attention or negligence of the various operations the luthier performed.

While acknowledging all the guitars we have studied have a commercial value (which has been growing in recent years), we focused also on their historical value. For this reason, we have selected instruments that hade the most relevant geographical and historical characteristics, endorsing the luthiers whose prestige have left the biggest influence. Many of them were already famous in their own day, their instruments being played by the most important players of their time. Others however, despite being almost unknown to us, reveal with their instruments extraordinary skills and craftsmanship. Like all instruments, these guitars are an expression of their time and place, absorbing the cultural, technological and commercial influences of their day. In this sense it is easily understood why some kind of woods are typical of some specific geographical areas, some decorations evoke a style rooted in the territory, and finally how the aesthetic, which today we call "design" is very close to that of other artifacts of the same period and built in the same areas. For example, the regular use of mother-of-pearl for inlay work is commonly found in instruments made in the Neapolitan area, as is the use of bindings made of baleen taken from whales widely found in guitars built in the Piedmont area. Almost all the instruments are are made with local woods easy to find, that is local (non-tropical), and for this reason in addition to maple we often see the use of varrious fruit-woods such as cherry, pear, apple, walnut, etc. We also find that over time, the instruments increase in size and the build becomes more solid, resulting in instruments able to withstand higher string-tensions.

All these instruments were originally strung with wired silk or gut strings. One of the reasons why gut double-courses were abandoned in favor of individual strings is partially due to problems in the production of the strings themselves, which became more and more limited by the sanitary and hygenic challenges of their manufacture. Furthermore, the unreliability of the tuning of these kinds of strings helped to lead to the development of the more sophisticated "butterfly" system applied to simple conical pegs, for which Italy and its makers were the first and foremost inventors, only later on patented in Paris by René François Lacôte.

We hope that the contents and the topics covered in this book will be useful and a source of inspiration for further reading for all scholars and enthusiasts of the guitar world.