A small keyboard-operated stringed instrument, possibly a variant or ancestor of the viol family.
From Latin clavis (key) + -ole, a diminutive suffix. Variant or related to claviol, this term reflects Renaissance and early Baroque instrument nomenclature where -ole suffixes indicated smaller versions of instruments.
The claviole existed in a time when instrument families were still evolving and naming conventions were chaotic—the same instrument might be called different things in different cities, making historical musicology like detective work!
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