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Scan 16
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 2. See the scan on archive.org.
1supports them, and that no Greek monument is known to us showing an instrument with a neck or finger board and a bridge ("aucun monument ne nous presente chez les Grecs un instrument à manche et à chevalet"). Following this conclusion, M. Vidal, in his important work on the same subject, says that the Greeks and Romans did not know the use of bow instruments, and that absolutely nothing has been handed down to us authorising us to believe that they possessed this knowledge ("Il est prouvé aujourd'hui—que les Grecs et les Romans n'ont pas connue l'usage des instruments à archet; rien absolument dans les monuments et les empreintes de tout genre que nous à transmis l'antiquité n'autorise à le croire").
3This latter conclusion, which is quite recent, represents, as far as I know, the present state of the question. All such conclusions are, or should be, of a tentative kind, and while I do not presume to contest their accuracy, I may be allowed to suggest that the investigations which led to them have not been so thorough as to justify their expression in such absolute terms. From the collection of Etruscan and Greek vases belonging to the Prince of Canino, catalogued and published by subscription at Milan in 1836, illustrations of two ancient Greek utensils are given, which, I think, gravely impugn the justness of the above opinion. The first is a pitcher, having yellow figures on a black ground (No. 572 of catalogue), representing Hercules killing with his club Busirides, whose four assistants are in the act of flying, one of them having thrown away his lyre in his flight. This lyre has a bridge. The second is a tall handled cup, on which the figures are painted red on a black ground. The
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