One of the earliest representations (fig. 4) of a guitar in Western
Europe occurs in a Passionale from Zwifalten A.D. 1180, now in the
Royal Library at Stuttgart.[15] St Pelagia seated on an ass holds a
rotta, or cithara in transition, while one of the men-servants leading
her ass holds her guitar. Both instruments have three strings and the
characteristic guitar outline with incurvations, the rotta differing
in having no neck. Mersenne[16] writing early in the 17th century
describes and figures two Spanish guitars, one with four, the other
with five strings; the former had a cittern head, the latter the
straight head bent back at an obtuse angle from the neck, as in the
modern instrument; he gives the Italian, French and Spanish tablatures
which would seem to show that the guitar already enjoyed a certain
vogue in France and Italy as well as in Spain. Mersenne states that
the proportions of the guitar demand that the length of the neck from
shoulder to nut shall be equal to the length of the body from the
centre of the rose to the tail end. From this time until the middle of
the 19th century the guitar enjoyed great popularity on the continent,
and became the fashionable instrument in England after the Peninsular
War, mainly through the virtuosity of Ferdinand Sor, who also wrote
compositions for it. This popularity of the guitar was due less to its
merits as a solo instrument than to the ease with which it could be
mastered sufficiently to accompany the voice. The advent of the
Spanish guitar in England led to the wane in the popularity of the
cittern, also known at that time in contradistinction as the English
or wire-strung guitar, although the two instruments differed in many
particulars. As further evidence of the great popularity of the guitar
all over Europe may be instanced the extraordinary number of books
extant on the instrument, giving instructions how to play the guitar
and read the tablature.[17] (K. S.)