A
tricky restoration for the Macaulay collection, was to a late ‘Roman’ archlute by Cinthius Rotundus, Rome,
1699.

This was a fairly complete,
but much damaged, late baroque archlute. A particular problem with
this instrument was that it had been clumsily restored in the past,
with several sturdy planks of softwood firmly glued across the
inside of the back. Thus here it was necessary to remove the top,
and this, apart from causing the usual slight further damage
revealed that a lot of removal of irrelevant parts, and repair
needed to be done. Lute soundboards should be glued on with thin
glue to aid their removal for repairs, but here the intention seems
to have been absolute permanence.

Following removal of the
inappropriate repairs, the back needed a lot of work, as the
rosewood ribs had between them ivory or bone lines, many of which
had come adrift and need careful coaxing back into place and re-glueing
with shaped pairs of cauls to clamp them. A particular problem with
lute backs is the difficulty of getting to both sides with clamps (the
Rauwolf restoration proved to be especially
difficult in this respect).

The soundboard was replaced, after some
discussion as to whether it should be left separate to show the
interior structure, and a small missing piece of rib was left
unrepaired, but strengthened, so that the interior could at least be
inspected. Other small missing pieces were filled with coloured hard
wax – easily removable
– and the instrument was strung
with appropriate thicknesses of gut under almost no tension. Thus
its final appearance was that of a perfectly playable archlute.
Cinthius Rotundus |
Anon guitar | Sellas |
Rauwolf |
Langenwalder |
Railich | Minor
restorations