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 53
Scan 53
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
10 lines. Read by computer on 14 September 2026. Printed page 43. See the scan on archive.org.
1of the Amati, Stradivari, and Guarnerii, whose fabrics alone have given it a musical immortality, and whose names are hung up high like the stars, which no discords of the middle ages, sieges, or brawls can ever reach.
3Let us now try and come face to face with these immortal makers.
5Andrea Amati (père) settled at Cremona, and made violins from 1520-46. He brought with him his brother Nicolo (not the great Nicolo, afterwards master of Stradivari, Italian, or Stradiuarius, Latin).
7Andrea Amati had two sons, Antonio and Geronimo, who made violins jointly as well as separately. When Antonio married, the fiddles of neither seemed to improve. The brothers ceased for a time at least to work together (there being, it is said, a period in which there are no joint reductions); but as there are much later violins bearing their joint names, it has been assumed that they again collaborated. If we trust some of these late labels—the brothers being born about 1555-56, and one of the joint violins being dated 1687—it would follow that the venerable artificers were still making violins at the age of 136 years, which beats Stradivari himself, who only worked till he was ninety-three.
9Geronimo, according to one writer's account of his labels, went even one better, for there is a Geronimo violin dated 1698; so if this Geronimo, brother of Antonio, was born about 1556, which is tolerably certain, he went on working even longer than Moses, with his eye undimmed and his natural strength unabated, down to the age of 148!
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