Praetorius tells us that there were two kinds of Italian lyres.

The large lyre, called _lirone perfetto_, or arce violyra, was in structure like the bass of the viola da gamba, but that the body and the neck on account of the numerous strings were somewhat wider.

Some had twelve, some fourteen and some even sixteen strings, so that madrigals and compositions both chromatic and diatonic could be performed and a fine harmony produced.

The small lyre was like the tenor viola di braccio and was called the lyra di braccio.

It had seven strings, two of them outside the finger board and the other five over it.