Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 46
Scan 46
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 24. See the scan on archive.org.
1From the drawing given by Daines Barrington, we see that the sizes of the strings of the crouth were proportioned, as in our instruments, according to their pitch and their degree of tension. Thus, the two long strings placed on the left of the neck, and intended to be played pizzicato, were the largest; the strings of the low notes C and D were of a medium size, and those of the high notes of the same names were small. These distinctions have also disappeared in the copies published by Bottée de Toulmont and Coussemaker.
3After what has been said concerning the crwth, crowth, or crouth, it remains to examine this question:—Has this instrument exercised any influence on the origin and the transformations of bow-instruments in use on the continent of Europe, particularly on the violin? In a word, was it known there at all? What was the state of it there in the middle ages?
5The words of Venantius Fortunatus which we have quoted prove that the crouth had appeared on the continent from the sixth century. Moreover, the figure from the manuscript of Saint Martial de Limoges shows that the primitive crouth with three strings was in use, in the south of France, in the eleventh century. Was this usage continued, and is the instrument traceable there in later times? On this point, Bottée de Toulmont makes conjectures, which he has fully detailed*, in order to demonstrate that an instrument called rotta, rota, rote, and rothe, by some writers in the middle ages,
7* Dissertation sur les instruments de musique employés au moyen âge, p. 32 et seq.
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