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

Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 24

Scan 24

Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864

6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.

1harmony in many parts. These conjectures, however, have no historical value, being unsupported by any passage in the ancient writers; neither does any monument among the Greeks present us with an instrument having a neck and a bridge.
3Some have been disposed to trace the bow in the plectrum; but πλήκτρον comes from πλήσσειν, to strike. The dictionaries, it is true, define it as the bow of a musical instrument; but this arises from a confusion in regard to the real meaning of the word. Statues, bas-reliefs, and the pictures on Greek vases, afford us numerous representations of the plectrum; but in all we see a piece of wood, bone, or ivory, ending with little hooks to pull the strings, or to strike them with the back. Had the Greeks wished to describe a veritable bow, the hairs of which serve, by friction, to put the strings into vibration, they would have called it τοξάριον (little bow). But nothing like a bow appears in any Greek or Roman sculpture or painting which has come down to us.
5The country which affords us the most ancient memorials of a perfect language, of an advanced civilization, of a philosophy where all directions of human thought find their expression, of a poesy immensely rich in every style, and of a musical art corresponding with the lively sensibility of the people—India, appears to have given birth to bow-instruments, and to have made them known to other parts of Asia, and afterwards to Europe. There, no conjecture is needed, for the instruments themselves exist, and still preserve the characteristics of their native originality. If we would trace a bow-instrument to its source, we must assume the most

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