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Scan 91
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 77. See the scan on archive.org.
1dence some of the interest which at present surrounds them.
3Of this great maker the two sons who followed their father's profession were Francesco and Omobono. They both worked with their father until his death, and during that period their tickets bear the inscription "sub disciplina Antonii Stradivari." After their father's decease each worked on his own account; and one ticket of the former runs, "Franciscus Stradivarius Cremonensis Filius Antonii faciebat anno 1742;" and one of the latter, "Omobonus Stradiuarius figliij Antonij Cremone, fecit anno 1740 aTcs." Fetis says that Francesco made good violins from 1725 to 1740, bearing his own name, and that his brother Omobono chiefly occupied himself in repairing, &c; but, as will be seen from the dates of these tickets, the former continued to make till 1742 and the latter down to 1740. Their instruments are mixed up with those ascribed to their father's last period, and it must be a nearly impossible task to bring order out of such confusion, unless by rejecting altogether these latest period violins. The brothers both died unmarried at the dates already given, and that is all that is known about them.
5With the death of Antonio Stradivari the fame of Cremona as a seat of violin manufacture began to decline, and, when the dealers of the Tarisio days found that none of the great man's successors could wear his mantle, they probably set about arranging the next best thing which they could think of—viz., to forge his name. The plan was as old as Jezebel's, and might be again successful, yet miss the dreadful penalty that befell her by the wall of Jezreel—"So they wrote letters in Stradivari's
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