uring the Renaissance, several sizes of instruments were produced to make up families corresponding more or less to the different registers of the human voice. Small lutes replicated the soprano register.

Renaissance Soprano Lute In the manner of Wendelin Tieffenbrucker By Edward R. Turner Vancouver British Columbia 1974 Spruce, British Columbia yellow cedar, basswood, ebony, maple, boxwood, gut, pearwood, ivory, nylon Overall length: 33.8 cm; body: 21.5 x 12.6 cm; depth: 6.3 cm; peg box: 10 cm

These two lutes, with their knotted-gut frets, are based on an instrument by Wendelin Tieffenbrucker which is preserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Tieffenbrucker belonged to a German family famous for its lute making in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Half of the family settled in northern Italy and the other half in Lyon, France. Wendelin was very active in Padua toward the mid-sixteenth century.

Opus 56
Renaissance Soprano Lute

Renaissance Soprano Lute Close-up view of the Gothic-style rose. In the manner of Wendelin Tieffenbrucker By Edward R. Turner Vancouver British Columbia 1974 Spruce, British Columbia yew and maple, ebony, Quebec maple, gut, pearwood, ivory, nylon Overall length: 33.2 cm; body: 20.5 x 12.6 cm; depth: 6.5 cm; peg box: 10 cm

Like all of Edward Turner's instruments, these lutes are meticulously crafted and historically faithful to the originals. A Gothic-style rose ornaments the soundboard.