Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 85
Scan 85
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
3neymen, what time the work-a-day noise of the city rose and the sound of matins and vespers was in his ears, through the long warm days worked Antonio Stradivari.
5Before the time came for the busy hand to fail Antonio ceased to sign all the violins that he made; but, with an old man's natural pride, he continued to sign a few down to the year of his death, registering the number of his years in each case, and it is from one of the latest of these, dated 1736, that we know his age.
7He sank quietly to rest, evidently worn out naturally and nobly, if not with his eye quite undimmed and his natural strength unabated, certainly still full of marvellous vigour, unpalsied senses, and undulled perception.
9When the Chapel of the Rosary in the Church of S. Domenico, opposite to which he had lived all his life, was pulled down, his funeral tablet was rescued, and it is now in the Town Hall at Cremona; but where are his ashes? Are they in the present family vault of the Stradivaris, in the Campo Santo of Cremona, or in the parish of S. Matthew? I was unable to ascertain. The tablet bears the following simple inscription:—"Sepolcro di Antonio Stradivari E svoi Eredi, Anno 1729."
11Many of his family had preceded him to the grave, both of his wives and six of his eleven children, his last wife dying only nine months before him, a significant and painful event in a life so regular and unevent-
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