Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "کیتارا" in Persian language version.
There is evidence of citharae shaped like a lute, that is with a neck and an elongated body, even before the 12th century: the Golden Psalter of St Gall depicts King David wielding an instrument...this instrument resembles a lute more than a cythara [lyre]...Further evidence appears in the Stuttgart Psalter...several images of an instrument...in the text, next to all these miniatures, the instrument is called a cythara...
Cythara...was often used as a generic term for 'plucked string instrument' by writers discussing a variety of instruments in medieval and Renaissance times...[a musician using the word about his personal instument would be] making a claim that his instrument was the one that had the magic to magically manipulate the listener's emotional states as the original kithara (with a similar large plectrum) had a reputation of doing to the ancient Greeks.
