50731-087-100
3/4/07
14:38
Page 88
RCM 48 Cittern Girolamo Campi, ?Brescia (or ?Pescina), c.1580 Inscriptions Stamped at top of back: GIRONIMO CANPI with three wheatears Handwritten paper label on inside of back: Extremely Curious Mandora / lately the Property of / Il Grand Maestro Rossini, / having formerly belonged to / Titian who used it as / a model in some of his / paintings. supposed period about / 1400 Brief description Renaissance cittern (cetra) with six double courses Dimensions : 727, without string-holder 718 : 308 (tail to top of front) : 248½ : maximum 47, minimum 31 (measured including front, which is 2.2 thick) : c.428 Description Front of medium to wide grain ?spruce; double purfling, widely separated, with inner line entwining in geometrical knot at tail end. Soundhole preserves the hardwood rim and paper fragments of an inserted rose; two lines of purfling around soundhole. Diameter of soundhole opening: 69mm; centre of rose from nut: 352.5mm. Gluing marks of a bridge c.10 × c.83mm. One large soundbar across the front, between soundhole and bridge, housed into sides (end of bar visible on exterior). Holes for twelve frontal pegs and tracks of six double courses on edge of peghead behind brass nut. Back, ribs, neck and peghead cut and hollowed from one piece of ?maple. Neck has a deep and narrow spine on the treble side (depth: 22 to 17.5mm; height: at nut 17mm, at mid-point 17.5mm, at body end 20mm). This bears the fullwidth fingerboard (width: minimum 44mm, maximum 47mm; thickness: 10mm) applied over soundboard, neck and part of peghead. Lower end of fingerboard has ogival profile and remnants of foliate painted decoration. There are seventeen frets, eight of which are not full width; fingerboard concave between frets. The frets are of brass strip, c.1mm thick, inserted from the treble side into stopped dovetail slots and locked in place by strips of dark wood 1.7mm wide. The strings were located in grooves in the wood of the pegbox before passing over an ungrooved brass nut of the same dimensions as the frets. Fret distances from nut: 1 25.5
7 158.5
13 236.5
2 45.4
8 172
14 247
3 69.5
9 189
15 256.5
4 106.8
10 202
16 268
5 126.1
11 214
17 284
6 141.2
12 227.5
The looped ends of the wire strings were originally hooked onto an integral comb-like string-holder, cut from the tail of the back. 88
The back of the peghead is an elaborately carved extra layer: on the rear are two grotesque heads, the upper with ram’s horns and the lower, forming a hook shape, with scroll-like tusks. Between the two heads are a male and female satyr back to back, with two arms raised and two bound together. Emerging from the mouth of the upper grotesque head is a female head with a separate carved ruff; this head has traces of paint and is in a different style from the other carving. Each head on the back of the peghead has inserted gemstone eyes. Commentary A similar but not identical design of two satyrs and grotesque heads can be seen on the anonymous cittern in the Hill Collection, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Boyden 1969, no.33), and another that is attributed to Girolamo Virchi, Brescia, in the Musée de la Musique, Paris (E 1271); both instruments differ from RCM 48 in having constructed, not carved, backs and ribs. RCM 48 retains its original varnish whereas the Paris cittern was restored in 1700 by Stradivari (and was formerly attributed to him). An arch-cittern (ceterone) by Campi in the Museo Bardini, Florence, has a label as well as the stamp and seems to be the only other surviving instrument signed by this maker (Hellwig 1971, p.24 & pl.II). Although these and similar citterns have been considered to be of Brescian origin, it has been suggested that Campi may have worked in Pescina (near L’Aquila, Abruzzi), since a Giuseppe Campi was working there 1760–2 (Antonioni 1996, p.25); there seems to be no supporting documentation for Girolamo’s presence there, however, and the name Campi is to be found elsewhere (for instance in Cremona). Possibly Girolamo Campi moved to Pescina later having trained in Brescia. The label of the Campi ceterone has been read as: Gieronimo Campi fece, Innocentio Peretti il Luchesino Inventor, indicating that Innocentio Peretti of Lucca was the inventor; Monteverdi called for ceteroni in his opera Orfeo (1607) in Mantua, not far from Brescia.
Cittern, Girolamo Campi, RCM 48: detail of stamp on back