Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 64
Scan 64
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
9 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 42. See the scan on archive.org.
1Thus, as we see, these instruments are all tuned a fourth lower than the Italian viols. At such a pitch, they could only produce a dull and mournful effect. They were all played on the knee, except the bass, which was held between the legs, and the double bass, which was played standing.
3There was another viol, whose sides were narrower than those of the bass viol, and which was called viola bastarda (bastard viol), because it was tuned by fifths and fourths.
5We have now approached towards the end of the sixteenth century, and, up to this period, have found nothing in the form of the violin, although the name of violino had already occurred in a work of Giovanni Maria Lanfranco, printed at Brescia in 1533*. Does he speak of the violin such as we know in the present day; or merely of the little viol, which was called, somewhat later, violetta? This is difficult to determine. The first precise reference [to the violin], although given in an indirect way and without the least detail, is found in the first part of the Prattica di Musica, by Ludovico Zacconi, printed at Venice in 1596. He there gives the compass of various instruments of his time, and among them that of the violin, represented in this manner: †
7* Scintille, ossia regole di musica, che mostrano a leggere il canto firmo e figurato, gli accidenti delle note mensurate, le proportioni e tuoni, il contrapunto e la divisione d'il monocordo; con la accordatura di vari instrumenti, &c. cap. ultimo.
8† Lib. iv, p. 218 verso.
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