Dear David,
Yes indeed. And to add to your guesstimate about lutes, the number of
extant mandoras/gallicons is only about 70 made between 1688 and 1780
(most are listed Dieter Kirsch 'La mandora au XVIII siecle'). Although
their geographical area of production (and common use) was q
Dear Howard,
You are absolutely right, we need constantly to remember that.
At the conclusion of a piece I wrote about the timber trade for
lutemakers I put the following totally unscientific guesstimate. This
is in the context of just 826 surviving lutes of all periods including
