arly part of the 16th[6] and during the 17th century. It was a kind
of theorbo or bass-lute, but with one neck only, bent back at right angles
to form the head. Robert Fludd[7] gives a detailed description of it with
an illustration:--"Inter quas instrumenta non nulla barbito simillima
effinxerunt cujus modi sunt illa quae vulgo appellantur theorba, quae sonos
graviores reddunt chordasque nervosas habent." The people called it
_theorbo_, but the scholar having identified it with the instrument of
classic Greece and Rome called it barbiton. The barbiton had nine pairs of
gut strings, each pair being in unison. Dictionaries of the 18th century
support Fludd's use of the name barbiton. G. B. Doni[8] mentions the
barbiton, defining it in his index as _Barbitos seu major chelys italice
tiorba_, and deriving it from lyre and cithara in common with testudines,
tiorbas and all tortoiseshell instruments. Claude Perrault,[9] writing in
the 18th century, states that "les modernes appellent notre luth barbiton"
(the moderns call our lute barbiton). Constantijn Huygens[10] declares that
he learnt to play the barbiton in a few weeks, but took two years to learn
the cittern.

The _barbat_ was a variety of _rebab_ (_q.v._), a bass instrument,
differing only in size and number of strings. This is quite in accordance
with what we know of the nomenclature of musical instruments among Persians
and Arabs, with whom a slight deviation in the construction of an
instrument called for a new name.[11] The word _barbud_ applied to the
barbiton is said to be derived[12] from a famous musician living at the
time of Chosroes II. (A.D. 590-628), who excelled in playing upon the
instrument. From a later translation of part of the same authority into
German[13] we obtain the following reference to Persian musical
instruments: "Die Saenger stehen bei seinem Gastmahl; in ihrer Hand
Barbiton^{(i.)} und Leyer^{(ii.)} und Laute^{(iii.)} und Floete^{(iv.)} und
Deff (Handpauke)." Mr Ellis, of the Oriental Department of the British
Museum, has kindly supplied the original Persian names translated above,
_i.e._ (i.) _barbut_, (ii.) _chang_, (iii.) _rub[=a]b_, (iv.) _nei_. The
barbut and rubab thus were different instruments as late as the 19th
century in Persia. There were but slight differences if any between the
archetypes of the pear-shaped rebab and of the lute before the application
of the bow to the former--both had vaulted backs, body and neck in one, and