Henri Arnaut de Zwolle

Henri Arnaut de Zwolle (c. 1400, in Zwolle – September 6, 1466, in Paris ) (often Henri Arnault, also Henricus Arnold/Arnoldus/Arnoul of/van Zwolle) was employed as a physician, astronomer, astrologer, and organist to Philip the Good. He is best known for a treatise on musical instruments.

Henri Arnaut apparently was born in Zwolle, then part of the Burgundian Netherlands. There are no data on his education. Perhaps he became a physician first, as he was named Magister Henricus Arnault, Medicus Alemannus de Zuvolis (Zuvolis = Zwolle). He became a student of the instrument-maker Jean de Fusoris, who was employed between 1400 and 1445 by Philip the Good and later by the French king Louis XI. By 1432, Henri was at the court of Philip the Good in Dijon as well.

Between 1438 and 1446 (several decades before the activities of Leonardo da Vinci), he created manuscripts in Latin on a wide variety of technical subjects, including astronomy, hydraulics, astronomical instruments, and drawings of apparent inventions like a folding ladder and a gem polishing machine. He describes the layout of pipes, either with the longest in the middle, "in the form of a bishop's mitre", or in chromatic order, longest at the left, and he is credited with the first mention of reed pipes.

Between 1454 and 1461 he left the Burgundian court to work for the French kings Charles VII and Louis XI in Paris, where he died of the plague in 1466.

Note that with the exception of the top and bottom courses, this is equivalent to "classic" multiple fretting.