Resonating box of chitarrone

The instrument was originally a chitarrone produced by Iungman in Genoa in 1633. Its neck has been shortened, converting it into a sort of large 10-string mandola that seems hard to use in its current status. The resonating box and what remains of the neck (very small as it appears today) must, therefore, be deemed a work of Giorgio Iungman, while the reduction of the neck, pegbox and bridge can be traced to the 1800s. The shell, which features excellent craftsmanship, is made up of twenty-three ribs of yew, using the part of the trunk between the sapwood (white) and the heartwood (red); therefore each rib seems to comprise two ribs, giving the impression that the number of ribs is double the actual one. Consistently with the date 1633 present on the label inside the instrument, the original layout of the instrument could have been that of a 14-course chitarrone, whose first six courses (probably double) had a vibrating length of ca. 850 mm. The remaining eight courses (single courses) were bourdon strings with a vibrating length of ca. 1600 mm.