Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 66
Scan 66
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.
1VIOLINS AT CREMONA
3Amatis, whilst others are called Amati Strads, and some are apparently joint productions.
5When Stradiuarius married (about 1667) and left Nicolo Amati, he set up round the corner in the same street as the brothers Guarnerii, and almost next door to them, in the square opposite the great Church of S. Domenico. From about this time connoisseurs notice a great improvement in Stradivari's technique; but up to 1672 at least, remaining a close copyist of Amati, he doubtless kept on terms of the closest intimacy with Nicolo, now in his decline, and benefited by the abundance of orders flowing in for Amati violins which the old master was unable to execute.
7From 1660 to 1684 was a period of great activity, perhaps haste; even some pot-boiling Stradivari violins may then have been made as the young family increased. Antonio's wood is often plain about this time, and not up to the best taste and selection of his master, but he evidently remained his right-hand man to the end; and when Nicolo died, at the ripe age of eighty-eight, he left all his tools and his plant not to his son Girolamo, then about thirty-five, but to Antonio Stradivari, then just forty years old.
9In 1680, four years before the death of Nicolo, Antonio had so far prospered as to be able to buy his house (which I visited in 1880), at 1 Piazza Roma, for about £800. Desiderio Arisi, a Cremonese, has left an interesting MS. in which he speaks of "his intimate friend Antonio Stradivari." The MS. is dated 1720, or seventeen years before the death of Stradivari.
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