trings have, by this means, been made to yield twenty-four distinct tones.
The lyre was, in fact, a small harp, and the hollow resonant portion became, in time, expanded into a chamber over which the strings were stretched in parallelism, forming a dulcimer, the immediate parent of the hammer group, — citole, clavichord, clavicytherium, virginal, spinet, harpsichord, piano (see piano). Another, and perhaps earlier, divergence of the instrument with strings in parallelism above a sounding-board is found in a portallo class, — the monochord, cithara, guitar, and a host of other instruments with names less widely known, such as theorbo, pandore, mandolin, etc. These instruments were played by the fingers or by a plectrum, and from them came out the class of instruments played by the bow, of which the viol is the head, and the others take their names as relatives, — violin, viola d'amour, violoncello, bass-viol. See Description des Instrumens Harmoniques, by Father Bonanni, Rome, 1776
