A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Viola d'Amore

VIOLA D'AMORE. A Tenor Viol with sympathetic strings. It usually has seven stopped strings. The sympathetic strings, of fine steel or brass, pass through small holes drilled in the lower part of the bridge, and under the fingerboard: their number varies from seven to fourteen. They are tuned to a diatonic or chromatic scale.

We give the ordinary tuning of the gut strings. The sympathetic strings, tuned to the scale of D, diatonic or chromatic, are sometimes screwed up by pegs similar to those of the gut strings: but the better plan is to attach them to wrest-pins driven into the sides of the peg-box. [See Violin.]

[ E. J. P. ]