I date the contemporary revival of the baroque guitar to the anniversary year of Henry Purcell in 1995. There were to be many performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and lute/guitar players recognized that a good guitar would be essential. I had put off building baroque guitars but in response to requests from several clients I chose two models to build-one early Italian (this anonymous example) and the second, a late French model. I offered them for evaluation at the LSA Seminar (Rochester) in 1993. The Italian guitar was the unanimous favorite and with this encouragement I loaned the guitar to several players for an extended period of evaluation. Pat O'Brien was enthusiastic about the model and having ordered one used his new guitar in The Harp Consort recording of Ruiz de Ribayaz, Spanish Dances (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi). The CD won a Diapason D'Or and topped the classical charts in several countries. This model of guitar has remained one my favorite instruments to build.