Scan 71
Joseph Guarnerius, his work and his master [Andreas Gisalberti], 1906
14 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 35. See the scan on archive.org.
1accounted for unless we take into consideration the possible assistance found necessary owing to advancing years.
3The latest date of Gisalberti's work that has come before me is 1735—he may have worked some time later, I have been told till 1740—it is still under the pseudonym of Sante Ballarini, which, having fastened on to him in former years, he seems to have been known by it.
5His gifted pupil, Joseph Guarnerius, was then working at Cremona, sending forth masterpieces that have since been the admiration of the world at large, and possibly, who can tell? the envy of the immediate circle of working liutaros in his adjacent neighbourhood. It is he and his works that will now occupy our attention.
7It is to the earliest part of the eighteenth century we will now have our attention directed. A probably unostentatious circumstance, and with nothing about it to cause unusual or gentle surprise, was the fact of a young craftsman leaving the house of his teacher wherein he had for some years been acquiring and storing up the principles and secrets of the art, which he was to practise henceforth for his own personal betterment, and to the pleasure and satisfaction of those by whom he might chance to be patronised—to seek a reputation equal to, if not above, that of the numerous liutaros who were daily making the city of Cremona more and more famous.
9A young man, he started off in great confidence that the knowledge he had gained under the guidance of Andreas Gisalberti would prove, if not a veritable mine of wealth, sufficient for all his needs, and likely enough raise his name above those of his family, who had long been established in the city.
11His full name has been handed down to us as Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri; to moderns he is known by the Latinised name as seen on his tickets, and which have the second name omitted, and he is thus universally spoken of as Joseph Guarnerius.
13That he was born on the 8th of June, 1683, is an established fact, the same having been ascertained from
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