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Scan 75
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 61. See the scan on archive.org.
1that it is by no means a fanciful conjecture to suppose that he was in very comfortable circumstances, if not even wealthy, at that date, and that he had ample means to enable him to devote himself to those scientific studies which his after works prove he carried into practice.
3Prior to the death of his first wife in 1698, a marked transition had taken place in the character of his work, diverging, in some degree, from that of his master, Nicolas Amati, in being somewhat narrower; and about 1700, when he was fifty-six years old, he attained that perfection which distinguishes his finest instruments during the next twenty-five years of his life. One or two writers, quoting almost the very words of Fetis, have stated that the siege of Cremona, in 1702, caused the only troubled year in Stradivari's career. That it caused him any trouble at all is in the highest degree improbable. The terrible sound of the words has been, perhaps, the chief inducement to some writers to carry forward Fetis' conjecture without due examination. The actual facts of the case are as follow: During the war of the Spanish Succession the French Marshal Villeroi, after his defeat at Chiari by Prince Eugene in September, 1701, retired to Cremona, where he took up his winter quarters. Prince Eugene kept moving about in the neighbourhood, unknown to the French garrison, and, towards the end of January, 1702, he placed himself in communication with a curé there, under whose house a large aqueduct passed. During the small hours, one cold morning in the same month, this enterprising general, aided, it is said, by what is called the treachery of the curé, sent some of his soldiers disguised through this gigantic drain, and they opened one of the gates of
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