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Scan 187
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 173. See the scan on archive.org.
1immediately after their institution the Antwerp makers supplied the whole of Europe with these instruments for a period of a century and a half. This is not surprising when it is considered that these statutes were almost wholly in the public interest. I imagine that there are few fiddle fanciers who do not now wish that some such clauses as Numbers 4 and 10 had been binding on the violin makers of Europe during the three following centuries, or that they could be made binding for all time.
3One of the earliest makers in Belgium, of whom any trace can be found, was one Bourbon, in Brussels, by whom there are still in existence some violins, tenors, and double basses. His instruments are modelled after the manner of Gasparo da Salò, having parallel sound holes with very wide openings. He is supposed to have lived about 1600. In Antwerp, about 1641, there is some trace of a Theodore Verbruggen, who, it is said, made a double bass for the cathedral of that city, and another double bass made for the same church is still in existence, and bears a ticket of its maker, which reads as follows: "Peter Porlon tot Antwerpen, f. 1647." It is said to be played in the cathedral to this day, and that the musician whose office it was to perform upon it in the year 1847 caused the following inscription to be placed on the back in commemoration of its two hundredth anniversary: "ANTWERPIÆ IN SANCTÆ MARIAE VIRGINIS UNO ALTEROQUE ÆVO JEHOWÆ LAUDES CANUI," which may be translated, "In the church of the Holy Virgin Mary at Antwerp, I have, during two hundred years, sounded the praises of Jehovah." Somewhat later, there was a Jean Borlon in Antwerp, by
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