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Scan 70
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLINS AT CREMONA
3In 1685, Cardinal Orsini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIII., had ordered a violoncello and two violins of him, besides making him "one of his private attendants," an honorary title, but equivalent to appointing Straduarius instrument-maker to the Cardinal Archbishop. We commend this fact to his Holiness Pope Leo XIII. (1897), who has lately placed the violin on his index expurgatorius of instruments, as being too frivolous for the solemnities of divine service! Yet Pius IX. was a pretty good fiddler.
5In 1687 Stradivari makes his famous set of instruments for the Spanish Court, inlaid with ivory, with a scroll-work running round the sides. One of these rarities—a violin—found its way into the hands of Ole Bull, the famous violinist. It has been since sold in England to Dr. Charles Oldham of Brighton. The tenor is, I believe, in existence. When last in the market, it had lost its ivory purfling, which has since been exquisitely replaced by Messrs. Hill.
7There are extant several very small violins made evidently to order about this period. The fallacy of different sizes for different ages from childhood upwards is one which will always smile to makers and those acute persons who teach the violin and buy their pupils' instruments, which of course have to be changed as the children grow up, for larger and larger ones. I have always protested against this. A child of eight had much better play the violin like a violoncello (at the age of seven, as I did myself) than be given a small one; but when I was eight I could hold a full-sized
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