Lyra viol

Lyra viol 1. a small bass viola da gamba, pop. in 17th-c. England and known as viola bastarda on the Continent (for description see: viola bastarda). It was one inch “shorter in body and neck” than the *division viol, also an inch narrower at the top of the belly and an inch narrower at the bottom, according to James Talbot (ca. 1700), and was tuned on the principle of the *lira da braccio, i.e., in mixed 4ths and 5ths to facilitate chordal playing, from which characteristic it probably derives…