#historical performance

• Archetto — A musical term borrowed from Italian denoting a small or slender bow, specifically used for period instruments of the viola family or for executing miniature technical details in Baroque music. In a structural-constructive sense, archetto also represents the elastic bridge or curved tension element that holds the horsehair strands, playing a crucial role in controlling dynamic nuances and sound articulation.
• Arciliuto — The Italian nomenclature and international neologism for the archlute, a plucked string instrument developed during the Baroque era. This device structurally combines the traditional lute body with an extended neck supporting two separate pegboxes, allowing the tensioning of extra open bass strings used to sustain the basso continuo in seventeenth and eighteenth-century chamber music ensembles.