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Scan 78
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 64. See the scan on archive.org.
1to speak of him, describing him as tall and thin, and habitually wearing on his head a white woollen cap in winter, and in summer one of cotton. When he worked, he wore over his clothes a white leather apron, and, as he was always working, his costume never varied. Polledro further said that Stradivari had acquired, by means of his labour and economy, more than a competency, for the townspeople used to say, "Rich as Stradivari." These are the words of Polledro, as reported by Fetis, but I think it is not improbable that a portion of his wealth was derived from his first marriage, or from some source independent of his labour, for he was rich early, and at a time when he apparently did not produce many fiddles—viz., when he bought the house in 1680, thirteen years after his first marriage.
3Giam-Batista Polledro, who furnished the above sketch, was born in Piedmont in 1781, and was one of the most remarkable violinists in Italy. After visiting Russia, where he remained five years, he became chapel master in Dresden in 1814, and continued there until 1824, when the King of Sardinia called him to Turin to superintend the Royal music there. Polledro died in Turin in 1853. His master, or at least his model, was Pugnani, and as the latter was born in 1727, he would only be ten years old when Stradivari died, so that if Polledro refers to him as the master who had known the great Cremonese maker, his recollection of him must have been a very youthful one. Besides, it is unlikely that Pugnani, who was born in Turin, could have been out of that town at so early an age. He was a pupil of Giambatista Somis, who was chapel master to the King of Sardinia, and a contemporary of Stradivari; but Somis
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