Although Praetorius depicts the instrument as lyra de bracio with various viols "da gamba" (see image),[1] it was in fact played on the shoulder, as is implied by its name, which refers to the arm, or braccio in Italian.

The lira da braccio was first cited in 1533 by Giovanni Maria Lanfranco[5] (using the term "seven-stringed lyra"), also describing its tuning: [c-c' / g-g'-d'-a'-e].

Lira was devised to accompany humanist sung verse by poets, such as the 14th century Petrarch and his later imitators, and was popular in the North Italian city-states such as Florence, Ferrara, Mantua, Venice and so on.

Amongst its exponents at the time were several great painters, notably Leonardo da Vinci, who according to Emmanuel Winternitz, was widely held to be the doyen among performers upon the Lira.

The Italian musicologist Disertori showed that it was possible to reconstruct highly convincing examples of the lira da braccio in its early forms, from the meticulous paintings and drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio and many other artists from the late 15th/early 16th century, thus opening many exciting possibilities relating to the re-creation of late 15th century performance practice.