The viola d'amore (pronounced [ˈvjɔːla daˈmoːre, viˈɔːla -]; Italian for 'viol of love') is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with additional sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period.

[2] The six-string viola d'amore and the treble viol also have approximately the same ambitus or range of playable notes.

The viola d'amore usually has six or seven playing strings, which are sounded by drawing a bow across them, just as with a violin.

Leopold Mozart, writing in his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, said that the instrument sounded "especially charming in the stillness of the evening."

The first known mention of the name viol d'amore appeared in John Evelyn's Diary (20 November 1679): "for its swetenesse & novelty the Viol d'Amore of 5 wyre-strings, plaid on with a bow, being but an ordinary violin, play'd on Lyra way by a German, than which I never heard a sweeter Instrument or more surprizing..."

It may be noted that, like instruments of the violin family, the modern viola d'amore was altered slightly in structure from the baroque version, mainly to support the extra tension of steel wound strings.

Leoš Janáček originally planned to use the viola d'amore in his second string quartet, "Intimate Letters".

Scordatura notation was first used in the late seventeenth century as a way to quickly read music for violin with altered tunings.

In scordatura, one imagines that one is playing a violin (or in some cases a viola, where alto clef is used) tuned in the normal fifths.

This does mean that there are two ways of notating notes on the middle two strings but it quickly becomes apparent, when playing, what the correct reading should be.