Books › An encyclopedia of the violin, 1925 › scan 28
Scan 28
An encyclopedia of the violin, 1925
26 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1The labels of this master are conceived in the following terms:
3Gaspar Duiffopruggar à la
4costé St. André à Lyon
5(Gaspar Duiffopruggar at the
6side of St. Andrews' in Lyon)
8and have the form of a reverse triangle. Count Louis de Waziers and the violin maker Chardon-Chanot, of Paris, possess bass viols by Duiffopruggar whose authenticity is beyond question.
10The following Latin label, in which an allusion is made to the wood of which the viols were constructed, is also attributed to Duiffopruggar:
12Viva fuy in Sylvis; sum
13dura occisa securi;
14Dum vixi, tacui, mortua
15dulce cano
16(I was living in the forest;
17the cruel ax did slay me.
18Living, I was mute,
19Dead, I sweetly sing.)
21The viols were the immediate predecessors of the violin, and the viols, in so far as form is concerned, were, as Vidal tells us, subject in construction to all the liberties which the builder might choose to take with them.
23The creation of the violin of to-day in its actual shape is veiled in mystery, which the most ardent discussions on the part of specialists have not been able to solve. The opaque curtain of uncertainty which hides the truth from us has made it possible to ascribe the glory of having called forth the wonderful instrument to which this book is devoted to Testator the Older, Amati, Gasparo da Salo and Maggini respectively. A luthier (a viol and lute maker) named Kerlino, who lived in Brescia about the year 1450, is also credited with the discovery of the violin in the form known to us; and Kolitzer, a famous Parisian builder of the same epoch, is said to have effected the transformation from viol to violin by changing the neck of a viola da braccio. All in all, while it is possible that the paternity of the violin may be conceded to Gasparo da Salo, it seems most probable that Maggini of Brescia may be considered the first to give the violin its present form; and, at all events, the instruments made by this famous builder are authentic in all their parts.
25It is evident that the actual form of the instrument is the fruit of a thousand and one successive changes, and that the present form has been in use for several hundreds of years. Innumerable experiments have been made with the object of varying the form, and of increasing the sonority of the violin as we know it; but none of those who would improve the violin has produced instruments which can equal in nobility of tone the instruments made by Stradivarius, Amati and other great Italian masters.
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