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Scan 29
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 15. See the scan on archive.org.
1umphant though troubled career, this hot-headed, good son, brother, friend, and peerless artist, ever was known to permit his filial piety to warp his judgment. That he was capable of appreciating the qualities of musical instruments must also be admitted, for, at the earnest entreaty of his father, and much against his own inclination, he devoted a large portion of his time and a considerable share of his transcendent talents to the service of the flute and another instrument, and to such good purpose that he narrowly escaped being compelled to accept a position in the Pope's Band. Giovanni Cellini was himself an enthusiastic musician as well as a maker of violas. It is a great misfortune that no trace of his work, further than this incidental allusion to it by his son, is found, but, coming from such a source, it is much more ample evidence than exists in any one of the cases already named, where no specimens of their handicraft are known. This interesting fact strengthens the already fully admitted claim of Italy to priority in the art of violin making, and sets up a new one for the town of Florence, the cradle and nurturing ground of so much of the art born under the Italian sky during the Renaissance period; for, if Giovanni Cellini, who, I think, remained nearly all his life in his native town, made, at about the period 1500-5, the most beautiful violas that had ever been seen, it requires no great stretch of reasoning to conclude that Florence knew the art long before Giovanni brought it to such perfection. This architect, musician, lute, and viola maker died of the pest (at this time raging in Italy), in Florence, in the year 1527 or 1528.
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