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 98

Scan 98

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 76. See the scan on archive.org.

1problem of the laws by which the best possible tone might be produced in bow-instruments; and having duly considered all the various theories on this subject, he finally resolved to submit the instruments of Stradivarius to analysis, hoping to derive therefrom the illumination which he had been unable to obtain elsewhere. As he himself declared, in his course of lectures on experimental philosophy, delivered in the college of France during the academic year 1838—9, he was indebted to the courtesy of M. Vuillaume, and to his zeal for science, for the opportunity of experimenting upon a great number of violins by Stradivarius and Guarnerius, as well as on the remains of instruments by these great masters. It was from the result of these reiterated experiments, varied in a thousand ways, that the learned Professor deduced his theory of the construction of bow-instruments, the principles of which he detailed in his course, and of which he was preparing a definite abstract, which death unfortunately prevented him from finishing and publishing. It is from these researches that I borrow what follows.
3It is at once evident that all the doubts which perplexed the mind of Savart, concerning the laws that govern the construction of bow-instruments, were immediately dispelled when he experimented on the instruments of the grand epoch of Stradivarius; because there he always found the same results produced by the same causes, the same forms, and the same proportions. Sagacious as any one could be, in the art of discovering these causes, by experiments as well conceived as they were nicely carried out, Savart was able, at the close of

The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.