Materials Used for Study of Renaissance Musical Instruments

1. Surviving instruments (ancient)

• few before 1600's
• Neolithic bone flutes
• Egyptian:  tombs
• Metropolitan Art Museum, NYC
• Brussels:  Fetis
• West Berlin:  State Institute for Music Research
• Vienna:  Art Historical Museum

2. Folk Instruments

• current surviving non-Western cultures;  resemble early Renaissance instruments

3. Iconographical Evidence

• skeptical:  accuracy

4. Literary Evidence

• fiction or non-fiction?
• non-specific

5.  Account Books

• reliable
• shows most valued instruments

6.  Theoretical Works & Tutors

• how to play
• popular in 1500's
• Praetorius:  Suntagma musicum-woodcuts contain scale drawings

7. Music

• not helpful
• unspecified instrumentation