In Judenkünig’s and Hans Gerle’s works are found the accompanying illustrations of stringed instruments provided with a bridge. Their identity is unmistakable, though they differ from each other in many peculiarities of form. Both instruments represent the so-called “big fiddle”[3] or “Basso di Viola.” The tuning was that of the lute, which, as an older stringed instrument, served in this respect as its model. Only in regard to the pitch did any difference exist. Judenkünig makes it thus:-- [Illustration] Hans Gerle, on the contrary, writes it thus:-- [Illustration] Here the pitch of the second is a fifth lower than the first. Judenkünig’s pitch represents the tenor and that of Gerle the bass. Agricola says in his “Musica instrumentalis,” regarding the height of pitch for the lute: “Zeuch die Quintsait so hoch du magst Das sie nicht reist wenn du sie schlagst.” (Draw up the fifth string as high as you may, That it may not be broken when on it you play.) And in Hans Neusiedler’s Lute-book (1535) it is said: “He who wishes to learn how to tune the lute, let him draw up the Quint string, not too high, and not too low, a medium height, as much as the strings will bear.” Similar instructions are to be found in Gerle’s “Musica Teutsch.” The capability of tension of the Quint string was consequently the guide for the pitch in tuning the lute--beyond this there was as yet no normal pitch--and in stringed instruments it was in every case so maintained. In playing with wind instruments the stringed instruments had, therefore, to adapt the pitch to them. The “great violins” were, in the first half of the sixteenth century at least, according to all appearance played in two ways. From the drawing in Judenkünig’s treatise, a mode of handling is seen which requires no further explanation. That the handling of the “great violin” represented by Judenkünig without any explanation is treated of as not exceptional appears also from the accompanying vignette of another publication of that period. [Illustration]