Mandora

This intricately carved boxwood instrument, dating to the early 15th century (ca.1420) features a wealth of symbolic imagery related to courtly love and romance. The interior is entirely gouged out, leaving a maximum depth of 15 mm, and the dark brown surface is richly incised with detailed carvings. The flat rosewood fingerboard covers the neck cavity, while the connected body cavity is partially enclosed by a flat boxwood plate overlapped by the concave end of the fingerboard. Four shallow circular depressions, formerly inlaid, surround a slightly concave, pierced spruce rosette reinforced by transverse ribs that partially obscure scrollwork. A separate, rougher slab covers the lower, narrower part of the soundbox, possibly replacing an original membrane. The strings are fastened through five holes in the rounded end of the soundbox, passing over an ebony nut and around missing tuning pegs inserted laterally through pairs of reamed holes in the sickle-shaped pegbox, which terminates in a carved figurehead of a cross-legged woman playing a pear-shaped, four-string instrument with a plectrum. The back is carved with figures of a woman, a dog, and a man with a hawk, posed beneath a Tree of Life with Cupid, while a leaping stag is carved on the bottom end of the instrument and a grotesque beast is carved on the back of the pegbox above a figure with a scroll and a raised hand. This is the most elegant example of three extant small European stringed instruments dated to the early fifteenth century. Originally the instrument would have been strung with five gut strings, but whether it was played with a bow or plucked with a plectrum or fingers remains unclear. The carved imagery relates to courtly romance and probably alludes to the rewards of fidelity in love. Cupid, armed with bow and arrow, hovers over the couple, a young man represented as a falconer (the falcon denotes loyalty and trust) and a maiden with unbound hair who clasps his arm. A dog, likewise suggesting loyalty, sits at their feet. The rich iconography of the instrument unites art and music in the service of romance.