Romantic Guitar

This instrument is the direct forerunner of the modern acoustic guitar, and is nothing but an acoustic guitar with a smaller body, less stringing and more fragile internal structure.

A bit of history...

From the midst of the eighteenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the baroque guitar had its tuning modified leading eventually to the emergence of the romantic guitar. A low string was added, replacing the five courses (two adjacent strings) for six individual strings. 

The romantic guitar was called guitarra or French guitar in both Portugal and Brazil. The oldest reference about the presence of this instrument in Brazilian territory is dated back to 1818. An advertissement published in the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, a local newspaper, informed that Manoel Luiz Soares "owns French guitars for sale".

Watch the video below and learn more about the romantic guitar.