A lower-voiced lute with a large body and single set of strings, probably developed in Italy during the late 1500s. It was usually about 6 feet tall with a normal lute body. It had 6 to 8 strings running over the fingerboard to a pegbox (the part of the instrument in which the tuning pegs are set) positioned midway in an extended neck. The instrument had 6 to 8 additional bass strings, or diapasons, lying off the fingerboard and running to a second pegbox at the end of the neck. Having a sonority approaching that of the contemporary harpsichord, it was used as a basso continuo instrument in 17th-century chamber-music ensembles.

Its name derives from the Italian word for guitar (chitarra), which was the Italian name for the gittern and traces back to the ancient kithara. The name is also sometimes used to refer to the similar theorbo.