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Scan 118
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 104. See the scan on archive.org.
1Count Albert Fugger prosecuted him for certain dues which it was customary to levy on court tradesmen, but which it was as customary in some cases to forego. Stainer petitioned the Emperor to be forgiven the sum, but his supplication was unheeded because he had been tainted with heresy. Stainer then fell deeper and deeper into misery, became indolent, and died, out of his mind, in 1683.
3Such is the personal history of this remarkable man, as given by Dr. Abele, and which is taken, I presume from the work of Herr Kaplan Ruf, for the Doctor does not always acknowledge, it is said, the source from which he derives information. The details of Stainer's existence are marvellously complete, and in striking contrast to the meagre histories which we have of all the other great makers. It is the most recent account of this maker, and harmonises with only one or two points of the earlier ones. Stainer's wife and eight daughters survived him, an only son, born July, 1657, having died in May of the following year. There is a tombstone in the Pilgrim's Church at Absom attesting this last fact. Stainer's house stands opposite the Krippenschlösschen, and they still show, it is said, the bench to which the great Tyrolese maker was bound when he died mad. All the foregoing facts, it appears, have been ascertained to be accurate, and all other stories about him are discredited as fabulous; among them, alas! being that retreat to a Benedictine cloister and the manufacture of the twelve Elector Stainer violins. Three of these celebrated instruments have been reported by all writers during the last thirty or forty years as still existing, and if the above new facts
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