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viol

One of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed instruments

Also known as gamba (family of viols) · viola da gamba (family of viols)

Instance of: type of musical instrument
Subclass of: string instrument
, necked box lute played with a bow

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

The viol is a family of bowed, fretted string instruments that developed in Spain in the late 15th century, particularly in Valencia within the Crown of Aragon, and subsequently spread to Italy and other parts of Europe. Most viols have six strings tuned primarily in fourths, with a third in the middle, and are played upright, with the instrument held on or between the legs—hence the Italian name viola da gamba, meaning "leg viol".

Overview

All data

49 statements · 22% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Hornbostel-Sachs classification: 321.322-71
Different from: vielle
Practiced by: viol player
1
Sources
1.rae.es/dhle/violagambista
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Facet of: viol family

On other databases

40 identifiers linking viol across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

22%

externally sourced

Source last edited September 30, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). viol (Q40125). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/viol-Q40125