Dear Arto and friends, Roman is completely right. There is abundant Spanish iconography from the 15th century, less so from the 16th, showing lutes. I don`t have the information about the sources at hand right now, but if there is interest I could compile a list over the weekend. On the other hand, to address your question about the attitudes of Spanish society towards the lute in the 16th century, I can give you the answer in a nutshell (slightly different from received opinion): the guitar, as is commonly held, was a truly popular instrument; the vihuela was widely esteemed throughout the social scale and not only among the higher classes as is generally believed; but the instrument favoured by nobility and upper classes was, precisely, the lute. (The long and detailed answer is my Ph.D. dissertation, which draws evidence from a wide variety of sources, buy I shant bore you with those details). It still remains to find a satisfactory explanation for the fact that no music was printed specificaly for the lute, as Ariel and Stewart pointed out, but I believe we can now rule out the argument about dislike for arab culture.
With best regards, Antonio --- Arto Wikla <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escribió: > > Dear Roman and lutenists, > > > I just wonder, what a 7-8th century Catalan mss. has > to do with the > attitudes of the society of 16th century Spain? > > Arto > > _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Información de Estados Unidos y América Latina, en Yahoo! Noticias. Visítanos en http://noticias.espanol.yahoo.com
