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 25

Scan 25

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

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

1simple form in which it could appear, and such as required no assistance from an art brought to perfection. Such a form we shall find in the ravanastron, made of a cylinder of sycamore wood, hollowed out from one end to the other. This cylinder is 11 centimètres* [4.331 inches Eng.] long, and has a diameter of 5 centimètres [1.969 in.]. Over one end is stretched a piece of boa skin, with large scales, which forms the belly or sound-board. The cylinder is crossed from side to side—at one-third of its length, next the sound-board—by a rod or shank of deal, which serves as a neck, of the length of 55 centimètres [21.654 in.], rounded on its under part, but flat on the top, and slightly inclined backwards. The head of this neck is pierced with two holes for the pegs, 12 millimètres [.472 in.] in diameter; not in the side, but in the plane of the sound-board. Two large pegs, 10 centimètres [3.937 in.] in length—shaped hexagonally at the top, and rounded at the ends which go into the holes—serve to tighten two strings made of the intestines of the Gazelle, which are fixed to a strap of serpent skin attached to the lower extremity of the rod or shank. A little bridge, 18 millimètres [.709 in.] long, cut sloping on the top, but flat on the part which rests on the sound-board, and worked out rectangularly in this part, so as to form two separate feet: this supports the strings. As to the bow, it is formed of a small bamboo, of which the upper portion is slightly curved, and the lower straight. A hole is made in the
3* Approximate values in English measures are given within brackets, retaining only two or three decimal places.—Tr.

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