of the viola da gamba is tied to the evolution of the smaller medieval violetta or vielle, which was originally fitted with a fifth string drone, where the name remained unchanged even though it ceased to perform this function. Ian Woodfield, in his The Early History of the Viol, points to evidence that the viol does start with the vihuela but that Italian makers of the instrument immediately began to apply their own highly developed instrument-making traditions to the early version of the instrument when it was introduced into Italy. Initially, the family of viole ("viols") shared common characteristics but differed in the way they were played. The increase in the dimensions of the "viola" determined the birth of the viol and the definitive change in the manner the instrument was held, as musicians found it easier to play it vertically. The first consort of viols formed by four players was documented at the end of the fifteenth century in the courts of Mantua and Ferrara, but was also present in popular Venetian music ambience, noted at the Scuola Grande di San Marco, 1499; Venetian culture remained independent of Spanish influence and consequently unfamiliar with the instruments of those lands, such as the bowed vihuela de arco. Groups of viol players, generally called violoni, was established in the Venetian Scuole Grandi around 1530–40, but the highly traditional environment of these institutions suggests that these groups would have already been active in the general urban context during the previous two decades (1510–1520). Some of these players were known to have travelled to distant lands, including Vienna, the Duchy of Bavaria or the Kingdom of England where they were welcomed at the court of the Tudors and subsequently influenced England's local instrument production. Construction Viols most commonly have six strings, although many 16th-century instruments had only four or five strings. Viols were (and are) strung with gut strings of lower tension than on the members of the violin family. Gut strings produce a sonority far different from steel, generally described as softer and sweeter. Around 1660, gut or silk core strings overspun with copper wire first became available; these were then used for the lowest-pitched bass strings on viols, and many other string instruments as well. Viols are fretted like early guitars or lutes, using movable wrapped-around and tied-on gut frets. A low seventh string was supposedly added in France to the