Books › A treatise on the structure and preservation of the violin and all other bow-instruments : together with an account of the most celebrated makers, and of the genuine characteristics of their instruments, 1875 › scan 32
Scan 32
A treatise on the structure and preservation of the violin and all other bow-instruments : together with an account of the most celebrated makers, and of the genuine characteristics of their instruments, 1875
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 16. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER III.
3NOTICE OF THE MOST ESTEEMED ITALIAN AND STEINER'S VIOLINS, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THEIR STRUCTURE. COMPARISON BETWEEN THESE AND THE COUNTERFEIT INSTRUMENTS.
5I have had about thirty Cremonese violins under my hands, of the following makers.
7The oldest were made by Jerome Amati, at the beginning of the seventeenth century: after him came Anthony Amati, in the middle of that century; and, then, Nicholas Amati, towards the end. Anthony Straduarius, of Cremona, flourished at the end of the same century, and Joseph Guarnerius, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.*
9All the instruments above referred to were formed after the simplest rules of mathematics; and the six which I received unspoiled were so constructed, that the belly was thickest in the middle, where the bridge stood; it then diminished about one-third at the f-holes, and, where it rested on the sides, it was only half as thick as in the middle. The same proportion was observed in the length. The thickness of the middle was maintained as far as the length of the bass-bar, and then diminished one-half to the upper and lower end blocks. The breadth was so proportioned that the cheeks were three-fourths the thickness of the breast; and the edges all round, only one-half the thickness.
11* For more exact historical details and additional particulars of the Cremonese makers, and some others, see Appendix, No. II.—Tr.
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