Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 67
Scan 67
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 45. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLIN MAKERS OF THE ITALIAN SCHOOLS
3FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.
5The fifteenth century reveals to us but a single name, and even that is a subject of doubt. According to Laborde, there was in Brittany, about 1450, a stringed-instrument maker named Kerlin, of whose workmanship he had seen a violin, made in 1449. In 1804, that is, about twenty-five years after the date when Laborde wrote, this instrument was found in the possession of Koliker, a violin maker at Paris; at which time we saw it. However, it was not a violin, but a viol, whose neck had been changed, and which was mounted with four strings, like a violin. The instrument bulged more than the viols of a later period, and the rise* of its back and belly was very great. Its upper and lower extremities were not accurately rounded, and the corners were blunt and curtailed. Instead of the ordinary tail-piece, there was an ivory attachment pierced with four holes for fastening the strings, which seemed to indicate that this instrument belonged to the
7* By the rise, swell, or arching of the back and belly of violins and other stringed instruments, is to be understood the degree of elevation of those parts, viewed longitudinally.—Tr.
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