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Scan 74
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 60. See the scan on archive.org.
1far back as 1213, some say 1127, in honourable connection with the history of that town, but it has not been found possible to trace, with any degree of accuracy, the precise relation of the subject of these lines to those supposed ancestors. Nothing whatever is known of his early history until he appears in the registers as having married his first wife—Francesca Ferraboschi—on the 4th of July, 1667, when—accepting the above ticket as correct—he would be twenty-three years of age.
3His first works are said to bear the name of Nicolas Amati, whose pupil he was, but in 1670 he begins to sign instruments with his own name. From that date until about 1690 he continued to work apparently on the same lines, producing, it is said, however, very few instruments, and it has been the custom to believe that during those twenty years he employed himself chiefly in making experiments and researches, instead of merely increasing his commercial connection, and this circumstance leads one to suppose that, to enable him to accomplish this object, he must have possessed some independent means, or have acquired them through his marriage. The lady had been a widow for three years, and had one child by her former husband, Giovanni Giacomo Capra, when she was wedded to Stradivari in 1667, and there were six children born to them between the last date and 1698, when she died. One of these children died in infancy, but the lady's daughter by her first marriage was adopted by Stradivari, thus making in all a household of eight to provide for; and besides, the great violin maker bought, on the 3rd June, 1680, for a very considerable sum of money in those days, the house in the square of Saint Domenic, in which he worked, so
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