The scandalous composer was also an excellent lutenist extolled by his contemporaries. At the end of the sixteenth century he received the first two prototypes of the archlute from his colleague Alessandro Piccinini in Ferrara, one of which he kept.

In the absence of music for the lute by this composer of genius, Bor Zuljan Zuljan combines transcriptions of Gesualdo's vocal and instrumental music with the astonishing chromatic compositions of the composers he is thought to have encountered in the course of his turbulent life: A. Piccinini, J. H. Kapsberger, P. P. Melli, C. Saracini, B. Castaldi and V. Bernia.