Mandore (instrument)

The mandore is a musical instrument, a small member of the lute family, teardrop shaped, with four, six courses of gut strings and pitched in the treble range. It was considered a new instrument in French music books from the 1580s, but is descended from and very similar to the gittern. It is considered ancestral to the modern mandolin. Other earlier instruments include the medieval European citole and the Greek and Byzantine pandura.