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Scan 81
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 67. See the scan on archive.org.
1little or no exaggeration in it even now, for the most excessive estimate of the number turned out by him during his long life does not place it beyond between 600 and 700. Those violins, originally bought at a price ranging up to £3 16s., had been "knocked about" all over Italy and elsewhere, in the villages and towns, at dances and reunions, for about 150 years before their merits attracted much attention from the virtuosi, as it was not until about the beginning of this century that the great search for his instruments began, and, with the exception of those in a few cabinets of collectors on the Continent, the great majority of them would be subjected to all the rough usage incident to a time when the violin held only an ordinary position as a musical instrument. To the collectors of those days we are, of course, much indebted; but now that the fiddle has attained its majority, modern collectors can hardly claim the merit of rendering a similarly important service.
3It was an illiterate Italian, named Luigi Tarisio, who, about 1827, began that system of fiddle hunting which has continued with more or less eagerness down to the present day, when the sources of his supply are almost entirely exhausted. Indeed, there are not many civilised countries in the world which contain fewer specimens of these makers than does Italy at the present moment. Almost all the large cabinet collections which formerly existed, there have been broken up, and some of them—such as the Castel-Barco collection—were transferred bodily to London, and sold off at very moderate prices. America also is creeping up, and France has long held a prominent position in the scale. The great hunt is over, and the fiddles all securely "placed." The
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