Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 65
Scan 65
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
12 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3have always found Stradivari there; and when, later on, Giuseppe imbibed a taste for fiddle-making, and became himself the great Del Gesù, it is hard, I insist upon it, to believe that what must have been a lifelong acquaintance with the mighty Stradivari should have had no influence whatever in forming his ideas and methods.
5There is no mention of the youthful Stradivari having accompanied Andrea Guarneri to the wedding of his master, Nicolo Amati; Andrea was doubtless the older pupil, and Antonio Stradivari was taken on later.
7"If thou wouldst teach, learn; if thou wouldst create, first copy." It is generally held that for some years, roughly between 1660–70, Stradiuarius simply made up, blocked out, drew, glued, mixed varnish, and worked generally, but without signing his own name to any fiddles. He was learning; but in 1660 he begins to sign his name, not from pride, but because his master made him do so. From before that date to about 1670, which brings us to within fourteen years of Nicolo Amati's death, he made what are sometimes called Amati Strads.
9At this time Antonio followed closely the violins of the early Nicolo rather than the grand Amati pattern, but he appears to have followed his master's developments continuously, slowly, but surely.
11There exists a Stradivari violin with a label Nicholai Amati (anno 1667), and about that date (when he married) Antonio seems to have left his master's workshop, but still continued closely to copy Nicolo, and many violins of his between 1660 and 1670 pass as
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