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Tenor drum: a deep drum, larger than the side drum and usually without snares, with a dark, rolling tone. In modern Italian rullante alone often means the snare drum, so check the instrument list.
Labels a single-line percussion staff in Italian scores and instrument lists; the plural is tamburi rullanti. It is unpitched and untransposed. Because rullante has also come to mean the snare drum, an Italian label can point either way — the instrument list, or snares-on/snares-off instructions in the part, decide.
The tenor drum’s rolls are rounder and darker than the side drum’s crisp crackle — suited to processions, funeral marches and ominous build-ups — and it sits more easily under brass. Since names vary (tenor drum, caisse roulante, Rührtrommel) and tamburo rullante is easily confused with tamburo militare, state in the instrument list whether you want snares, and specify sticks if the attack matters.
Tamburo rullante is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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