lira da braccio

[ leer-uh duh brah-choh, -chee-oh; Italian lee-rah dah braht-chaw ]

noun

, plural li·ras da brac·cio, Italian li·re da brac·cio [lee-, r, e dah , braht, -chaw].

1. a many-stringed musical instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries, played with a bow and used for polyphonic improvisation.

Word History and Origins

Origin of lira da braccio¹

< Italian: lyre for the arm

Example Sentences

Just 17 inches tall, with a tiny waist and unmuscled thighs and buttocks, this Orpheus looks more like a boy than a man as he sings, dances and plays a Renaissance string instrument called a lira da braccio.

From New York Times

A further image, an engraving of a man playing a lira da braccio - a Renaissance string instrument - was examined.

From BBC

He played a kind of fat violin called the lira da braccio, for which there were not even written scores.

From The Guardian

When he was about 31 and a struggling artist in Florence, wrote his first biographer Giorgio Vasari in 1550, he was invited to the court of Milan – not to paint, but play his customised lira da braccio: “and Leonardo took with him that instrument which he had made with his own hands, in great part of silver, in the form of a horse’s skull – a thing bizarre and new – in order that the harmony might be of greater volume and more sonorous in tone …”

From The Guardian

After his performance on the lira da braccio helped secure him a job at the court of Milan, he stayed there for nearly two decades, and later became court artist to the King of France.

From The Guardian