Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › Old violins and violin lore. Famous makers of Cremona and Brescia, and of England, France, and Germany (with biographical dictionary); famous players; and chapters on varnish, strings and bows, 1893 › scan 27

Scan 27

Old violins and violin lore. Famous makers of Cremona and Brescia, and of England, France, and Germany (with biographical dictionary); famous players; and chapters on varnish, strings and bows, 1893

6 lines. Read by computer on 10 September 2026. Printed page 19. See the scan on archive.org.

1Duiffoprugcar (hung and labelled in the South Kensington Museum), which he then believed to be genuine. It had lost the tubby characteristics of the viol tribe; it was, in fact, an early Brescian violin, linen-lined, but its claim to be a Duiffoprugcar was withdrawn.
3Duiffoprugcar was born in 1514 at Fussen, in the Bavarian Tyrol. He was an inlayer and mosaic worker. He is now known to have visited Paris, and to have worked at Lyons. There is a fine portrait of him etched by the engraver Wariot in 1562, and a curious viol is extant by him, with a map of Paris inlaid at the back, once owned by Vuillaume, and within recent years secured for the Brussels Conservatoire Museum by its intelligent curator, Mr Victor Mahillon. Mr Donaldson's beautiful viol da Gamba is the only other known specimen of his work. There is no evidence that Duiffoprugcar ever made what we should call a violin, and very good negative evidence to the contrary. In a curious old print exhibiting his portrait, a copy of which is owned by Messrs Hill, amongst the various viols represented no such instrument as the violin appears.
5It is easy to see how inevitable was the differentiation of the violin tribe from the first moment that a vocal quartet came to be conceived of. First the viol is selected to double a part, next a viol is made in a modified way to suit the part, and very soon the modification assumes the forms and proportions known as violin, viola, and violoncello.

The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.