Renaissancelaute nach Vendelio Venere 1592, Vorderansicht Renaissancelaute nach Vendelio Venere 1592, Muschel Renaissancelaute nach Vendelio Venere 1592, Halsansatz Renaissancelaute nach Vendelio Venere 1592, Rosette

Vendelio Venere, Padua 1592
original: Bologna, Accademia Filarmonica

This instrument by Vendelio Venere was made in Padua in 1592 originally as a 7 course lute. It has a string length of 58,5 cm. Therefore this lute may be tuned in a' instead of g' as the normal renaissance lute will be tuned. Furthermore this instrument will be an ideal instrument for the player with the small hand, and for children of course.

This lute will have the following features:

  • Mould with 13 ribs made out of yew or 25 ribs yew use the heart and splint wood togather in one rib as you may see in the pics. Therefore the mould looks like it has been made out of 50 wooden stripes.
    • Renaissancelaute nach Vendelio Venere 1592, Kappe
  • Soundboard made out of fine european spruce, having the original design for the rose, inlay around the edge to give a good protection
  • The neck is made out of lime wood which is then veneered with ebony or other wood on request
  • The fretboard is made out of ebony or plum wood with rosewood boarder
  • The string length is 58,5 cm
  • The pegbox is made out of beech and veneered with ebony
  • For the pegs I use plum wood, a very good wood for this purpose or boxwood
  • The mould is varnished with french polishing the stringing may be gut, normally it is Nylgut
Renaissance Laute nach Hans Frei um 1530, Decke aus alter Fichte

Instruments with old spruce for the top
As offered for the lute model by Hans Frei I can offer to use very old spruce for the top for this model too. I still did this several times. I found this material some time ago while buying some wood for the sides of an old door. This wood is probably 200 - 250 years old. It has been used for beams. This wood is not as wide as it should be and therefore the soundboard will be glued together with more pieces than usual. But this does not disturb the sound production. The sound goes to the sound of original old instruments do have, that I were able to hear. They do have a very deep and heavy but not dull sound. It is quite different to modern instruments.

About strings:
according to my experience this model is very good for a stringing with gut strings. A good Kombination will be plain gut strings from Savarez or Aquila and wound Nylon strings from Savarez. All these strings you can get in my Onlineshop and especially for this lute I created the following sets ( will follow ).