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.