Italy
European

Wood, gut strings, pearl, bone 
ca. 1700s
Length: 13.5 in (Back)
Strings – Lutes – Violin Family

A Violin d’Amore, labeled Petrus Io. Fratresq./Mantegatia Mediolani/in Via S. Margarite.  

The viola d’amore  shares many features of the viol family, a bowed box-lute chordophone of Renaissance Europe. This violin d’amore has six sympathic strings below the main strings and fingerboard, which are are not directly played, and six playing strings above them.  Like all viols, this violin d’amore has a flat back. An intricately carved head of a blindfold cupid with wings is at the top of the peg box, representing the blindness of love. The sound-holes are in the shape of a flaming sword known as “The Flaming Sword of Islam” (suggesting the instrument’s development was influenced by the Islamic World). This was one of the three usual sound hole shapes for viols as well.  It is unfretted, and played much like a violin, being held horizontally under the chin. Unlike most, this one is about the same size as the modern violin and not the viola. The first unambiguous reference to a viola d’amore with sympathetic strings does not occur until the 1730s.

Resource:  https://omeka-s.grinnell.edu/s/MusicalInstruments/item/638