This book presents new research on the history and development of the guitar and its music from the Renaissance to the dawn of the Classical era.  A systematic study of the two main guitar types found between about 1550 and 1750 focusing on sources of music and writings of contemporary theorists.  Additional research of the guitar’s history from the 1750’s to 1800’s examines how the five-course guitar gradually gave way to the six-string instrument, a process that occurred in different ways and times in France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Britain.