Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 57
Scan 57
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
10 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3"del Gesù," or Jesus, who followed after the John Baptist of the family? So far from indicating any particular reverence for religion, the assumption of this bold title seems to me to partake more of a certain irreverent levity; and if, as tradition says, the great Giuseppe or Joseph was somewhat of a free liver, and perhaps even a sceptic, he may have had small scruples in so lightly treating sacred names and subjects.
5The question as to who may have been his master, and the influence (or otherwise) of Stradivari upon him, has also been involved, as I think, in needless mystery.
7Since Del Gesù worked at Cremona and must have been, as a cousin and nephew, a good deal with his uncle and cousins, Andrea, Giovanni, and Pietro, who lived there, it is no great stretch of fancy to suppose that when he showed the family bent for violin-making, he should have been apprenticed to study the art with his cousin Giuseppe, son of Andrea, in which case he must have lived next door to where Stradivari was working all through his finest period; and though Giuseppe's violins are rightly said to be in the style of his cousin's Gianbattista, and he may have drawn his early inspirations from his cousin, it is impossible to suppose that so able a man could be in daily contact with and yet wholly insensible to the influence of the greatest maker who ever lived. Why, he not only worked next door to Strad, but probably met him every afternoon at the neighbouring café, and was doubtless often about his shop, year in year out.
9Of course the differences in the work of the two
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