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Transverse Flute in England
Mersenne's work, from which he takes a picture (Plate ix., Fig. 4) of a transverse flute or fife, which he calls "Fistula Militaris," and mentions that it was used by the Swiss Guards of the Pope.
"Air de Cour " from Mersenne (as transcribed into modern notation; in the original each flute has a separate stave.)
tion into
England flutes are depicted in an engraving to Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, dated 1579; in Ghieraert's picture of the Marriage Feast of Sir Henry Unton, painted about 1596, and now in the National Portrait Gallery—in both cases the player is left-handed—and in a contemporary picture of Sir Philip Sidney's funeral (now in the Heralds' College); and such instruments are mentioned in an inventory of Hengrave Hall, Sussex, in 1602. The earliest English description of the transverse flute I have met with is in
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