Books › Cremona violins. Four letters descriptive of those exhibited in 1873 at the South Kensington museum. Also giving the data for producing the true varnishes used by the great Cremona makers, 1900 › scan 15
Scan 15
Cremona violins. Four letters descriptive of those exhibited in 1873 at the South Kensington museum. Also giving the data for producing the true varnishes used by the great Cremona makers, 1900
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1The first known maker of the true tenor, and probably of the violin, was Gasparo da Salo. The student who has read the valuable work put forth by Monsieur Fétis and Monsieur Vuillaume might imagine that I am contradicting them here; for they quote as "luthiers"—antecedent to Gasparo da Salo—Kerlino, Duiffoprugcar, Linarolli, Dardelli, and others. These men, I grant you, worked long before Gasparo da Salo; I even offer an independent proof, and a very simple one. I find that their genuine tickets are in Gothic letters, whereas those of Gasparo da Salo are in Roman type; but I know the works of those makers, and they did not make tenors nor violins. They made instruments of the older family, viole d'amore, da gamba, &c. Their true tickets are all black-letter tickets, and not one such ticket exists in any old violin, nor in a single genuine tenor. The fact is that the tenor is an instrument of unfixed dimensions, and can easily be reconstructed out of different viole made in an earlier age. There are innumerable examples of this, and happily the Exhibition furnishes two. There are two curious instruments strung as tenors, Nos. 114 and 134 in the catalogue: one is given to Joan Carlino, and the year 1452; the other to Linaro, and 1563. These two instruments were both made by one man, Ventura Linarolli, of Venice (misspelt by M. Fétis, Venturi), about the year 1520. Look at the enormous breadth between the sound holes; that shows they were made to carry six or seven strings. Now look at the scrolls; both of them new, because the old scrolls were primitive things with six or seven screws; it is only by such reconstruction that a tenor or violin can be set up as anterior to Gasparo da Salo. No. 114 is, however, a real gem of antiquity; the wood and varnish exquisite, and far fresher than nine Amatis out of ten. It is well worthy the special attention of collectors. It was played upon the knee.
3There are in the collection two instruments by Gasparo da Salo worth especial notice; a tenor, No. 142, and a violono, or primitive double bass, 199. The tenor is one of his later make, yet has a grand primitive character. Observe, in particular, the scroll all round, and the amazing inequality between the bass sound-hole and the purfling of the belly; this instrument and the grand tenor assigned to Maggini, and lent by Madame Risler, offer a point of connoisseurship worthy the student's attention. The back of each instrument looks full a
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