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Scan 110
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 96. See the scan on archive.org.
1guished experts do not believe for a moment in their genuineness, and I refer back to the opening chapter in this book for a more rational explanation of their existence. Even in regard to violas, there is indubitable evidence that they were made and well known in Italy long before the earliest date assigned to Duiffoprugcar. The testimony of the great Benvenuto Cellini is conclusive on this point, and of a value infinitely superior to any number of vague conjectures. Dr. Schebek, and all other writers with whose researches I am acquainted, do not, indeed, appear to have known this circumstance; but the fact is there nevertheless. Cellini says, in his autobiography, that his father had, in 1500, the reputation of making the finest violas that had ever been seen. The words which I have italicised form a kind of oblique proof that the violin manufacture existed in Florence alone for a long time previous to 1500. The other branch of Dr. Schebek's argument, which rests on the early presence of lute and violin makers, in Italy, will appear, I think, as inconclusive when duly examined. Why should their presence be considered a proof that they went there to teach the Italians? Might it not, with equal justice, be said that they went there to learn, as did Stainer, the greatest maker of German origin that ever lived? Surely Italy, that splendid mine of intellectual and artistic wealth, is not to be despoiled of the small honour—if it is small—of having first started our present fiddle, by such an argument as that the lute and violin manufacture are very much alike, and that, therefore, those who practised the one must have founded the other. It is in reality the paucity of early specimens which brings all this plague of
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