Scan 197
Joseph Guarnerius, his work and his master [Andreas Gisalberti], 1906
16 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 129. See the scan on archive.org.
1suppose the liutaro, Joseph Guarnerius, to have been working for many years up to 1720-30, he may have industriously accumulated capital enough to enable him to take a place alongside the dignitaries of his craft, and be in closer touch with the kind of patronage he was enjoying and ambitious of extending.
3Falling in with this is another hypothesis concerning his working at this spot.
5In putting this forward it must be at once granted that the ground on which it is built is not of great extent, nor plentifully besprinkled with facts that only require properly arranging; there are really very few.
7The paucity may be accounted for by the want of knowledge or the consciousness among the liutaros of the neighbourhood that their works would be so much sought for, and fabulous sums of money paid for them more than a century after they were gone, and, in the majority of instances, they themselves forgotten where they had been for so many years busily making—as it afterwards proved—principally for future generations. If the hypothetical ground taken up is not very resourceful in its complement of hard facts, it may be said on the other side that there is little or nothing that can be urged against it.
9We will turn aside for a moment, therefore, and look over what facts come down to us in connection with some of the other members of the family of Guarnerius.
11The first of the famous name handed down to us as a violin maker is Andreas Guarnerius, who, tradition has it, was a pupil of the best of the Amatis, Nicholas.
13As his work has every indication coinciding with the peculiarities and excellences of that talented family, this can be passed by without a challenge.
15He seems to have been an artist with very little desire for striking originality. To him for a long time the Amati outline and modelling, or, as he may have considered it, the family style, was all that could be desired, and there did not appear to him any pressing necessity for radically altering the contour or changing the pro-
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