Early Italian painters put such instruments into the hands of angels and carvers left them for us to see, as in the cathedral of Amiens.

In fact there is every reason to believe that the wandering poets and minstrels of the Middle Ages used the small vielle, rebek or lyre for their accompaniments much oftener than the harp, which was more cumbersome and a greater impediment in traveling.
[Footnote 27: Michael Praetorius, "Syntagma Musicum," vol.ii, Organographia.

Wolfenbuettel, 1619-20.] The instruments used to support song, that of the troubadour or that of a Casella, or later still that of a Galilei, being of the same lineage, the only novelty was the adaptation to them of the lutenist's method of arranging polyphonic music for one voice with accompaniment.

That this offered no large difficulties is proved by the account of Praetorius.

If at the close of the sixteenth century chromatic compositions, which were then making much progress, could be performed on a bowed lyre, there is no reason to think that in Poliziano's time there would have been much labor in arranging frottola melodies for voice and lyra di braccio.