Books › Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883 › scan 18
Scan 18
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 4. See the scan on archive.org.
1of a learned Greek musician, astronomer, and doctor. The Prince of Canino's vases were engraved for the purpose of illustrating a history of the ancient Italian people, and the learned editor does not appear to have taken any pains to recognise the precise signification of the objects referred to above. They certainly appear to have been entirely overlooked by those writers who have so decidedly stated that there existed no evidence of the use of bow and bridged instruments being known to the Greeks and Romans, and, so far as I know, the columns of The Bazaar* may fairly claim to be the first to throw this light on a subject which interests many musical people. That the instruments figured in the above two vases were not the invention of the artist's, but faithful copies of specimens already in existence, may be safely concluded from the circumstance that the Greek laws were very stringent against any innovations in these matters. A note appended by Dr. Rimbault to North's "Memoirs of Music" settles this point: "It was not allowable for painters or other imitative artists to innovate or invent any forms different from what were established; nor lawful either in painting, statuary, or any branches of music to make any alteration" (Plato, De Legibus, lib. ii.).
3As in literature, painting, sculpture, and other branches of art, that of violin making, as we now know it, had its birth in Italy, where, as has been happily said, the two streams of Pagan and Christian civilisation united. ("La Renaissance au seizième siècle ne fut pas, comme on pourrait le croire, une reproduction servile de l'antiquité, mais bien une fusion harmonieuse des éléments
5* The contents of this book appeared originally in The Bazaar.
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