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 51

Scan 51

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

4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 29. See the scan on archive.org.

1which is no other than the krouz or rote of the Welsh and British bards of the sixth century."* We perceive, in this passage, the error concerning the rote reproduced after Bottée de Toulmont, and another which belongs to the learned Editor of the Popular Melodies of Brittany; namely, the pretended analogy subsisting between the rebek of the mendicant poets of the Low Britons and the crouth of the Welsh bards. The forms of these instruments are essentially different: for the primitive crouth has the body contracted towards the middle, and presents, in its upper and lower parts, equal hemispherical enlargements, or nearly so; whilst the rebec, the popular violin of the continent (which is nothing else than the rubèbe or rebelle of the middle ages, which had at first only one or two strings, like the popular rébab of the Arabs),—the rebec, I say, was narrowed towards the neck, and gradually enlarged until it rounded off towards the lower end. Its form was that of one of the small varieties of the lute, modified by a tail-piece more or less elongated, a bridge, and a bow to put the strings into vibration. The most ancient representation of an instrument of this kind was extracted by the Abbot Gerbert from a manuscript of the commencement of the ninth century. It has but one string: semicircular sound-holes are cut in the belly, and the string rests on a bridge: a part of the neck appears to be higher than the belly. Here follows a copy of this figure, which shows also a hand directing a bow on the string. (See Fig. 3, next page.)
3* Barzaz-Breiz, chants populaires de la Bretagne, introduction, p. xxxiv, 4th edition. Paris, 1846, 2 vols. 12mo.

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