This instrument which was highly appreciated in its time by musicians and music amateurs, is simply a normal viola usually with 6 or 7 strings but equipped with the same number of resonance strings. Stretched at a medium distance from the strings of the small bow and the belly, the resonance strings vibration when relative vibrations produced by the other strings sollicited them. This produced a greater resonance and a remarkable softness of sound. The viola d’amore appeared in the late 17th century and was very popular until at least the late eighteenth century. The principle of sympathetic strings was used on various-sized violas, and violas da gamba. This created an authentic family, to whose members special names were given, like in the case of the viola d’amore da gamba, called viola pomposa. The origin of the term d’amore is uncertain. A possible derivation has been given by the cupid head carved at the tip of the peg box. Others have suggested, refering to the incorrect Eastern origin of the resonance strings, that viola d’amore might be a deformation of viola de’mori (of the Moors).
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