Scan 77
Joseph Guarnerius, his work and his master [Andreas Gisalberti], 1906
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 41. See the scan on archive.org.
1There is much indication of sound reasoning in this, but the deductions for general apparent indication leading to the hypothetical teacher were much spoilt, if not totally upset, by the introduction of the name of Gasparo da Salo, to whom, the writer says, Joseph "seems to have turned as the maker whose lead he wished to follow." Referring to the detail of the soundhole of Gaspar's, the writer says that "Guarneri del Gesu retained its pointed form. Next comes the outline of the body, where, again, there is much affinity to the type of Gasparo da Salo."
3Of this last, criticism is scarcely necessary, as the particular specimens in the mind's eye at the time possibly suggested it. But the retention of the "pointed form" of the Gasparo soundhole is quite another matter; the writer was doubtless mixing up the two old Brescian masters, Gasparo da Salo and Giovanni Paolo Maggini as inconsistently as later commentators have Stradivari and Guarneri.
5As these two masters last mentioned were different in their conceptions of their ideal soundhole, so were the two first. Gasparo da Salo's soundholes were, all of them, distinctly opposed in intention and execution to the "Gothic" or pointed style introduced later by his famous pupil and successor, Maggini. The dealers have for long mixed up these masters, occasionally flavouring the composition by the addition of a quaint Mariani father or son as occasion prompted.
7Another writer, seemingly dubious as to the propriety of being led along servilely on the lines adopted by preceding authors, states that "it was a long-accepted conclusion that Joseph del Gesu was a pupil of the still greater Antonio Stradivari, but a more intimate acquaintance with his early violins has somewhat unsettled that opinion. Like those belonging to a similar period of Stradivari himself, Joseph's early works, displaying few marks of what is called originality, are, more or less, reproductions of the form and style handed down by Nicolas Amati to ancestors of the Guarneri family." As the most famous of this family, Nicolas, was living close
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