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During the Renaissance, especially in Italy, musical instruments of all kinds were being developed and reimagined often in a manner reinterpreting and updating, as in other fields, conceptions of classical antiquity. This was the case for example with the seven-string lyra da braccio, which had nothing to do with the ancient lyre, but was often represented in Renaissance iconography in conjunction with the likes of Jupiter, Orpheus, ancient poets, King David, and angels. It was actually played by recitalists as a polyphonic accompaniment to their singing. The larger form of the instrument, the lirone, usually with more than seven strings (and like the lyra da braccio, with at least two unfingered strings off the fingerboard), was also often used as an accompanying instrument in the manner of a harpsichord. This recording similarly reinterprets Italian music straddling the late Renaissance and early Baroque using exclusively instruments that were to be associated with the basso continuo function of the Baroque era, that is plucked strings (by way of fingers or keyboard), low-pitched bowed strings, and wind instruments (by way of double reed, keyboard, or otherwise). Many of these instruments were to disappear, be superseded or utterly transformed by the end of the 18th century before being revived in the 20th century, sometimes with as much liberty and imagination as the makers of the Renaissance. The scarcity of some of the original instruments, or their conversion into mainstream instruments, spawned the discipline of musical iconology, making it possible thanks to the visual arts to reconstruct ever more faithful versions of old, often obsolete instruments.