Salterio

Salterio is the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese term for either of two types of zither: the hammered dulcimer or psaltery.
Concept, etymology
'Salterio' / 'saltério' is used in Italian and Spanish where both 'psaltery' and 'dulcimer' are used in Spanish, 'psaltérion' and 'tympanon' in French, 'psalterium' in Latin. There has always been cross-over between the various terms, and it is only in the last 100 years that scholars have tried to distinguish between them, proposing that a 'psaltery' is plucked while a 'dulcimer' is hit, and that both belong to a generic 'zither' family (distinct from specific instruments called 'zither' by their players); but this usage is an abstraction and has no basis in the traditional use of these names: there are plenty of illustrations where psalteries are hit and traditions where dulcimers are plucked, the point is rather that a distinct type evolved from about 1500 in which the...