Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, 1864 › scan 27

Scan 27

Notice of Anthony Stradivari, 1864

4 lines. Read by computer on 16 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.

1idea of a sonorous chest, consisting of a belly, back and sides, with a neck, several strings raised by a bridge and attached by iron pegs to the back of the head—the idea, I say, of such an instrument, cannot be primitive. One can understand the invention of the Indian ravanastron; because such a rude type might be the work of the first person who should accidentally discover that a skein of thread twisted, a piece of wood, and a metallic rod, produce sounds when they are put into vibration by rubbing them with horse-hair; but one cannot conceive that an instrument whose construction requires the skill of a violin-maker was contrived, as a first essay, in times of barbarism. There is, then, every reason to believe that the Indo-Celtic race, in its migrations, transported the shapeless model of the apparatus with fretted strings (l'appareil à cordes frottées) which, in its highest state of perfection, now charms us in the hands of the virtuosi. The principle of the production of sounds by the action of the bow might doubtless have been discovered in different places; but a regularly constructed instrument could not have been produced at once by a people little advanced in civilization, who lived under a rigorous climate; whilst its origin in India is only marked by feeble essays. The very remarkable affinities of the Sanscrit and the Celtic dialects are certain indications of the primitive relationship of these nations, so widely separated from each other.
3Be that as it may, there were two kinds of crouth, which belong to different periods. The oldest of them is the crouth trithant, that is, the crouth with three strings; which is probably the one referred to by Venantius Fortunatus. Perhaps even this primitive crouth had [at first]

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