Milanese Mandolin
1757 (Made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Joseph (or Giuseppe?) Molinari made lutes and mandolins in Venice, and his surviving instruments date from 1737 to 1762. This example is called a 'Milanese' mandolin. Unlike the more familiar 'Neapolitan' version, it has five or six pairs of strings, or courses, tuned more like a guitar, and it is played with the finger-tips instead of a pick. Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) would have originally written his famous mandolin concertos for the 'Milanese' rather than the 'Neapolitan' version, which was not developed unitl the 1760s.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Planed ebony and ivory ribs; strips of ebony and ivory veneer on the neck; planed ebony fingerboard with ivory frets; planed pine soundboard and carved rosette; turned ebony tuning pegs. |
| Brief description | Milanese mandolin, with alternating ebony and ivory ribs, Giuseppe Molinari, Venice, Italian, 1757. |
| Physical description | "Body of eleven ribs alternately of ebony and ivory. The belly is of a single piece of pine, carved with a rose in an interlacing design. The neck, and the ribs of the back, are decorated with a feather design in ebony and ivory. The ebony fingerboard has eight ivory frets and the nut is of ivory. The open-backed pegbox has a square finial and has twelve ebony pegs, for six double courses. The strings are tied to the bridge." Anthony Baines, Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments (London, 1998), p. 38. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and inscriptions |
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| Gallery label | MANDORE (Milanese Mandolin) Italian (Venice), by Giuseppe Molinari. Venice; 1757. The label reads, Joseph Molinari fecit / Venetiis Anno 1757. Ebony and ivory ribs, pine soundboard, ebony and ivory neck, ebony finger board and ivory frets. Twelve tuning pegs and six courses.
Museum No.: 191-1882
Non-Keyboard Catalogue No.: 8/3
The Mandore was developed in France in the 1580s but more widely used in Northern Italy, during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The term "Milanese" mandolin has come to be used to describe the small instrument, played with the version, that was tuned like the violin and played with a quill.
Giuseppe Molinari's surviving instruments, mainly mandolins and theorbos, date from 1737 to 1762.(pre September 2000) |
| Object history | This instrument was part of the collections of Carl Engel and sold to the Museum in 1882 for £2 - 5 - 0. |
| Summary | Joseph (or Giuseppe?) Molinari made lutes and mandolins in Venice, and his surviving instruments date from 1737 to 1762. This example is called a 'Milanese' mandolin. Unlike the more familiar 'Neapolitan' version, it has five or six pairs of strings, or courses, tuned more like a guitar, and it is played with the finger-tips instead of a pick. Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741) would have originally written his famous mandolin concertos for the 'Milanese' rather than the 'Neapolitan' version, which was not developed unitl the 1760s. |
| Bibliographic reference | Anthony Baines: Catalogue of Musical Instruments in the Victoria and Albert Museum - Part II: Non-keyboard instruments. (London, 1998), p. 38. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 191-1882 |
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| Record created | May 16, 2001 |
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