Calascione or Colascione

CALASCIONE or COLASCIONE (Ital.; Fr. Colachon). The name of a fingerboard instrument of the lute kind belonging to Lower Italy. The calascione is strung with two catgut strings tuned a fifth apart. The body of it is like that of an ordinary lute, but it is relatively smaller towards the neck. Of all fingerboard instruments the calascione is most like the NFR (vocalised by different interpreters as nofre, nefru, or nefer) of the old Egyptian monuments; but it would be a...