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GRANT O'BRIEN
FRANCESCO NOCERINO
By Francesco Nocerino
Recent work both in the Neapolitan archives and elsewhere has uncovered numerous documents which provide yet more new evidence to confirm the role of Naples as an important centre for the production of musical instruments during the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. 2 My research, especially that carried out in the archives of the Banco di Napoli, has drawn my attention to a large number of documents dealing with an instrument called a tiorbino (sometimes spelled either teorbino or tiorbina ). The majority of the archival documents indicates that this instrument was especially common during the second half of the seventeenth century but then quickly went into disuse.
Until now the term tiorbino has generally been understood to mean a small octave tiorbo or theorbo: in other words, a plucked instrument similar to the theorbo but smaller and therefore at a higher pitch. As far as is known to the author the collection of music in the Capricci a due stromenti cioe Tiorba e Tiorbino , (Modena: 1622) by Bellerofonte Castaldi (1580-1649) is the only example of printed music which mentions this instrument specifically (see Figure 1 ). As can be seen here this music is in lute tablature and is therefore clearly intended for plucked strung instruments of the lute family. It is not intended for a keyboard instrument but for instruments of the lute family and, in this case, for the theorbo and the tiorbino ie. the theorbo and a small theorbo.
figure 1. first page of the 'capriccio di battaglia a due stromenti' by bellerofonte castaldi, from his capricci a due stromenti cioè tiorba e tiorbino, (modena: 1622 ).
1 The first part of this paper is a re-written and updated version of my article 'Il tiorbino fra Napoli e Roma: notizie e documenti su uno strumento di produzione cembalaria', Recercare XII (2000) 95-109, and of the paper which I read to the combined meeting of the American Musical Instrument Society...