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Scan 30
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 16. See the scan on archive.org.
1It would have been gratifying to me had I been able to add one more illustrious name—the most illustrious of all—that of Leonardo da Vinci, to the list of violin makers. That he was a maker of string instruments, however—for his own pleasure, possibly—is certain. In 1493, when he was presented to Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan, he brought with him an exquisite silver lyre made by himself. Vasari says: "E Leonardo portò quello strumento" (a lyre) "ch'egli aveva di sua mano fabbricato d'argento." The universality of Da Vinci's genius renders it quite conceivable that he also made instruments of the violin kind, but, for lack of evidence, I must regretfully leave the illustrious man with his lyre, deriving from the circumstance a further proof that the most distinguished spirits of those days did not disdain to practically interest themselves in the manufacture of string instruments, and perhaps to advance them, at least externally, on the road to that perfection to which they ultimately attained. It would be almost absurd to suppose that such a man as Leonardo da Vinci would occupy himself with the manufacture of a lyre, or, indeed, anything else, without thinking whether he could not in any way improve it in design or modify it in some manner that would render it more agreeable to the eye or more suitable to the ear. The scientific knowledge which he possessed was exactly of the kind required for the study and application of those principles which eventually were found by the French philosopher Savart to have guided the labours of the good makers; and the picture of Raphael, already alluded to, containing a viola with sound holes in the form of an f, and painted
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