The Kantele
The Kantele is very similar to a psalter, its origin goes back to the early Middle Ages and apparently it arrived in Valpantena and Lessinia during the second half of the 13th century when the Cimbric population migrated from south France.
In many of his books Arrigo Balladoro (famous ethnographer and folklore fan from Verona) mentions many ancient intruments among which the Kantele. He describes it as an "esoteric" instrument, namely suitable for meditation, constituted by guts strings and a sound box with 5 strings, and not 12 as in the Kantele we rebuilt.
It's made of wood and refined as it was originally. The orange colour of the front table comes from the scallop's shell which is the symbol of the pilgrims going to Santiago de Campostela.
For the moment we have reproduced only a Kantele with the medium tuning but are planning to reproduce also the ones with the low and high tuning. The organization is reproducing all the instruments belonging to the family of the Kanteli, which contains elements with "medium" tuning, as the one we have already reproduced, and with low and high tuning.
According to Fausto Albertini in the symbology of the Cimbric Panganoti the principle underlying the Kantele represents
the conjunction between water and fire, between purification and sacrifice ( we have to keep in mind that the Panganoti
were shamans).
