> Dear Francesco and All: > Isn't there an inventory of the Maler workshop on his death > indicating several hundred lutes in various stages of > construction? That would indicate a lute every few days. > Perhaps his was not a typical operation and probably employed > many masters and apprentices, but it does indicate that they > churned them out at a pretty steady pace -- probably much > faster than today's makers. No offense intended! 8^) Thanks. Well, to partial defense of our luthiers there is that we ask them all sort of veneereing and decorations while if one looks at the original lutes in the museums in most cases can see how imprecisely the rosette was cut and how much crude is sometimes the construction. We want lutes that in the past were built only for princes and earls. On the other hand they hadn't the technology that our luthiers can access...
Francesco To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html