Zuffolo is an Italian fipple flute. First described in the 14th century, it has a rear thumb-hole, two front finger-holes, and a conical bore. It is approximately 8 cm in length and has a range of over two octaves, from B3 to C6. A larger instrument of the same name, with a lowest note of C5 appeared in the early 17th century. In Sicily, zuffolo refers to a longer beak flute of about 29 cm, with a wide bore and six equally spaced finger-holes. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it was also called the "flautino", flauto piccolo, and flautino piccolo, and is sometimes spelled zufolo. Known as the Picco pipe and marketed as a toy until early in the 20th century, the instrument was popularized in London in 1856, either as a toy by a blind Italian musician named Picco, or by a blind Sardinian player at Covent Garden. The zuffolo is the smallest form of ducted-flue tabor pipe or flute-a-bec, at 3½" long, with the windway taking up 1½". It has only three holes: two in front and a dorsal thumb hole. It has the same mouthpiece as a recorder. The bore end hole of the picco pipe has a small flare, and the lowest notes were played with a finger blocking this end. The range is from b to c3, using the slight frequency shift between registers to sound a full chromatic scale, like the tabor pipe.
Relatives
In northern Europe a very similar instrument is known by various names from the 14th until at least the 17th century. The earliest source is a 14th-century Flemish manuscript copy of De planctu naturae by Alain de Lille, which includes drawings of eleven different types of instruments, including two of duct flutes. One of these is a one-handed flute with three front finger-holes and one thumb-hole. It is labeled, together with another instrument, with the generic Latin term "fistuli" and with the MiddleDutch word "floyt". In the early 16th century, a woodcut showing this same type of instrument is labeled "Russpfeiff" in. This name is spelled "Rüspfeiff" in, where the same instrument is also referred to as a "klein Flötlein mit 4 löchern" . At the beginning of the next century, Michael Praetorius depicted this instrument once again in the supplement to the second volume of his Syntagma Musicum, where he uses the expressions "gar kleine Plockflötlein", "garklein Flötlein", and "klein Flötlein". He gives the size of this instrument as about three or four Brunswick inches, its range as nearly two octaves, and its playing technique as involving "unten zum Ausgang darneben mit eim Finger regiret werden". The lowest open tone is shown in the woodcut as C6, but Praetorius does not say how much lower the instrument can be made to speak by using the finger to shade the bell opening.
