Scan 21
Joseph Guarnerius, his work and his master [Andreas Gisalberti], 1906
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 3. See the scan on archive.org.
1Naturally enough, during the contest for patronage among the different members of the various schools or centres then cropping up all over Italy, there would arise men of exceptional talent and capacity for the art which they had chosen as their means of livelihood; born and bred apparently specially for the chosen work, as the saying is, when their productions still extant are scrutinised.
3The men or masters, as the moderns term them, were endowed to an amazing extent by nature with that keen perception of what was beautiful and attractive to the eye, and which they were careful to implant in all the productions of their hands.
5It was sometimes chiefly confined to the general aspect, close attention to minute details being apparently neglected or deemed as but inferior adjuncts to the excellence of the whole work. At others, supreme attention seems to have been centred on the production of a work matchless in mechanical neatness, delicacy and grace of form, with beauty of colour such as ancient Greece or renascent Italy alone has as yet put before the searching, covetous eye of the connoisseur in all civilised countries.
7It was to the ranks of such artists, the term being understood in its most comprehensive sense, that the members of the renowned Amati family of Cremona, who with Giovanni Paolo Maggini were the immediate successors of Gasparo Bertolotis, belonged.
9Their first efforts were directed towards the attainment of a higher grade in the construction and finish of the violin, above what was possibly looked upon at the time and locally as sufficiently good for ordinary requirements. But men of their constitution and refined perceptions were not likely to remain long on uncultivated ground, when a whole vista presented itself before their widening mental vision, in which the ideal seemed present of almost every variety of work upon which they had hitherto placed their hands.
11To the possibilities in the future their energies were directed by regular degrees and with singleness of aim;
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.