Mandore (instrument)

![An example of a mandore made by Boissart, in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum.[18] The back and neck are one piece, carved from a block of pearwood, and features images of Juno, Minerva and Venus in a beauty contest, the Judgement of Paris. The gargoyle-like head at the bottom is Medusa.](/uploads/202502/01/WLA_vanda_Mandore_signed_Boissart4316.jpg)
The mandore is a musical instrument, a small member of the lute family, teardrop shaped, with four, six courses of gut strings and pitched in the treble range. It was considered a new instrument in French music books from the 1580s, but is descended from and very similar to the gittern. It is considered ancestral to the modern mandolin. Other earlier instruments include the medieval European citole and the Greek and Byzantine pandura.