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One kind of items found recently in a sunken 16th century ship in Croatia are rare 400-year-old bronze trumpets of which a fragment has the inscription "LVGDVNY BATAVORVM", the Latin name for Leiden, Netherlands. They are going to try to restore the trumpet. Another article has additional information:

But the most important fact is that the ship had a valuable cargo – numerous brass trumpets, which were exceptionally rare and costly during that period. Archaeologists from the UNESCO category 2 centre in Zadar determined from the inscriptions that these trumpets originated from Strasbourg, France and Leiden, the Netherlands. Until now, no trumpets from those cities were known or have been preserved anywhere in the world.

My question is: based on other data in paintings, sculpture, books, and other historical study of the origin of our modern trumpet, what is the shape, mechanism (mouthpiece, valve, etc.), and the range of these 16h century trumpets? Is it natural or keyed? What other historical instruments are closest to these? How similar is it to the Lissandro's Italian trumpet (Genoa, 1589) whose reconstruction described in this paper, or to a "baroque trumpet" (a mid 20th century reconstruction of a natural trumpet)?

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  • @Aaron Do you think it is similar to Lissandro's trumpet (Genoa, 1589) described in the paper I linked in my edit of the OP?
    – GratefulDisciple
    Commented Jul 18 at 3:32
  • Since the first key trumpets date from 2nd half of 18th century, the found ones are more than unlikely to be of that type, but in general, from the linked report it is way to early for anything but guesses.
    – guidot
    Commented Jul 18 at 7:57
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    For what it's worth, you can see my chapter on the state of trumpets and their playing circa 1626 in my dissertation, p 113; I doubt there would be much difference in the "late 16th century."
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 18 at 14:16
  • @guidot The good thing about SE questions is how they are around for a long time, so I hope that once the experts have done their study, we have more material for the answer giving us more details of a trumpet from that region compared to the Italian Lissandro of the same period or a modern Baroque trumpet reproduction that has holes in lieu of pistons. Who knows the northern Leiden trumpet has holes, since Leornado da Vinci speculated a keyed trumpet already c. 1500 along with his flying machine.
    – GratefulDisciple
    Commented Jul 18 at 17:06
  • @AndyBonner Yes, p. 113-119 certainly helps for grounding the speculation regarding this discovery. I will also read your dissertation as background info of early 17th century musical practice, as well as an example of musical scholarship. Thanks for sharing!
    – GratefulDisciple
    Commented Jul 18 at 17:32

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These are probably natural trumpets; it's not clear when the slide trumpet came into use. As noted in the Wikipedia article linked in the question, keyed trumpets were not made before the late 18th century, roughly 250 years ago and a couple of centuries after these trumpets sank.

These trumpets are probably extremely similar to the one described in the article linked in the question. Note, for example the similar band of decoration around the rim of the bell. An image search for trumpets in renaissance paintings doesn't turn up much variation: the more precisely the trumpet is depicted, the more closely it resembles the natural trumpets seen in museums and modern reproductions.

Here's one example from the Netherlands, from the middle of the seventeenth century:

Gerard Dou, Trumpet-Player in front of a Banquet (1660–1665). Oil on panel, 38 x 29 cm (14.9 x 11.4 in). Louvre, Paris

Page at Wikimedia Commons

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  • Is there any chance that the pictured trumpet is keyed like a modern Baroque reproduction, anticipated by Leonardo da Vinci and maybe a precursor of Anton Weidinger's prototype?
    – GratefulDisciple
    Commented Jul 18 at 17:10
  • @GratefulDisciple modern baroque trumpets have vent holes but no keys. As far as I understand, which isn't terribly far, they affect tuning of individual overtones rather than changing which overtone series is being used. They cannot play chromatic passages, for example. Da Vinci's instrument was more of a true keyed trumpet if I understand correctly, similar to Weidinger's, perhaps, but I haven't seen the drawings. The holes on a keyed trumpet are similar in size to those of a woodwind instrument; the holes on a modern baroque trumpet are much much smaller.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 18 at 19:32
  • @phoog There have been experiments with trumpets with tone holes, thing is that this heavily affects tone and response of the instrument. There have been players trying to stop trumpets, but that did not catch on. Now keys allows not only to have tone holdes, but also tone holes with optimal position and size. But they require certain metalworking technology, which made a huge leap in 19th century, which is why in that era we see the big development towards modern brass instruments. The keyed trumpets were still not popular, as they affected tone, and became obsolete only shortly after with ..
    – Lazy
    Commented Jul 19 at 9:37
  • @phoog ... valve/piston trumpets (which still took some time to get widely adopted, as musicians tend to stick to what they know). So all in all any keyed trumpet would probably be an experimental thing, nothing you would expect to be manufactured in numbers and shipped all over the place.
    – Lazy
    Commented Jul 19 at 9:51

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