From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The cittern is any member of the lute family generally played with a pick. They come in many lengths from the size of mandolins to that of mandobasses and in several different tunings. They usually have strings tuned in pairs in the manner of 12 string guitars, mandola and mandolins. Although renaissance citterns tended to have any number of strings between 8 and 20 their modern counterparts usually have 10.
The image is a woodcut of a cittern published in 1565 in Adrian Le Roy's "Breve et facile instruction".
