The
pegbox come from Istanbul ready to use, he said.
The
pegbox is bent back at a 45-90 degree angle from the neck of the instrument.
18, Schlcgel provides possible explanations for the sharp angle of the Renaissance lute's
pegbox in relation to its neck.
Eventually, he got a Hardanger fiddle - similar to a violin but with four "regular" strings and four harmonic understrings, the top of the
pegbox often embellished with a carved dragon or lion's head - and incorporated its haunting qualities into his own dance band.
The front of the famous lira by Giovanni d'Andrea from 1511 is carved to replicate a male torso, with a grotesque male face on the front of the
pegbox. The back is carved to replicate a female torso, with a female face showing on the back of the
pegbox.
The 12-course is consistently portrayed with one bent-back pegbox and one pegbox in the same plane as the fingerboard.
The lute appears to he double-strung but has the characteristic back-curved pegbox of the French theorbo.
An instrument representing this transition can be seen in the picture attributed to Michael Wright, c.1680, which shows a large 11-course instrument with one straight neck extension rather than two pegboxes.(24)
The shorter diapasons relative to the length of the stopped strings, and long, open lower pegboxes of many French instruments suggest that they carried less string tension than their Italian relatives.