Neapolitan Mandolin

• Neapolitan Mandolin
  
  According to the "Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments," the round-backed, teardrop-shaped Neapolitan mandolin emerged in about 1750. Its deep ribbed body is much like that of the medieval lute, and gives the instrument a penetrating lower register.
  
  

Portuguese Mandolin

• The interior structure of the flat-backed Portuguese mandolin is similar to that of the guitar, making it easier to play in a standing position. The earliest examples date to the late 1700s.
  
  

American Mandolin

• Beginning in 1902, the Gibson Company's F-series instruments featured exuberant "Florentine" styling dominated by a large body scroll at the upper shoulder. This design, as well as the company's simpler teardrop-shaped A-series mandolin, remains influential today.
  
  

Lloyd Loar

• Gibson F-series Mandolin
  
  In 1918, musician and acoustician Lloyd Loar (1886 to 1943) joined the Gibson Company and perfected the mandolin's structure to maximize its brightness as well as its depth, using violin-like f-holes, an arched top and a tortoise-shell back.
  
  

Bill Monroe

• Loar's Gibson mandolin was adopted in the mid-1920s by Bill Monroe (1911 to 1996), the "Father of Bluegrass," who made the instrument's penetrating tremolando the trademark sound of this emerging style of music.