Books › Chats on violins, 1905 › scan 97
Scan 97
Chats on violins, 1905
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1heart of Cremona's fiddle-making world: No. 1 Piazza St Domenico (now Piazza Roma). Here, with a white woollen cap on his head in the winter, a white cotton cap in the summer, and a white leather apron to protect his clothes from chips and glue, tall, thin Stradivarius laboured incessantly to the end of his days. He bought this house, known as No. 1 Piazza Roma, from a Cremonese family for about £280. It was a narrow building, consisting of three floors and large underground cellars. On the ground-floor was the shop, the parlour, the kitchen, and at the other end of the courtyard, the store-room. On the next floor, another four rooms, three on the next, and then came the attic above, a sort of covered terrace which was called "Seccadour," or "drying-place"; here it was customary for the Cremonese to dry their linen and fruit.
3In this quiet retreat Strad worked during the summer months; suspended between earth and sky, he "ascended to the highest heaven of invention." Here, in the silence which was only occasionally disturbed by the faint sounds from the town beneath, he followed the dictates of his own fancy, pondering the great problems of thickness,
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