Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 61
Scan 61
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
12 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 39. See the scan on archive.org.
1in order that the bow might not touch all three strings at once.
3Singular variations are observable in the form and dimensions of viols, and in the manner of stringing them, from the first half of the sixteenth century. The book of Agricola, printed in 1529, exhibits a complete quartett of little viols, with heads turned back, like those of lutes, and mounted with three strings only. Agricola designates them by the name of kleine Geigen mit Bünden und mit dreien Seyten (little viols with sides and with three strings). Like all instruments of the same species, their neck is divided by six frets*, Michael Praetorius says, indeed, in his Organographia, printed in 1619 †, that viols with three strings were used in ancient times, and that there were others with four and with five strings. Agricola gives the figures of the quartett of viols with four strings ‡, the details of construction of which are similar to those of the viols with three strings. The following are the tunings of the instruments which compose the quartett:
5Tuning of the Treble. Do. of the Alto. Do. of the Tenor. Do. of the Bass.
7Lastly, the great viols, with five strings, which Agricola mentions, formed a quartett, like the others;
9* Musica instrumentalis, pp. li, lii.
10† Syntagma Musicum, vol. ii, p. 45.
11‡ Loc. cit. p. xlvi, verso.
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