Scan 120
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 110. See the scan on archive.org.
1instruments," and fidicula as well as fides (or fidis) for "strings," the hypothesis that the term fidicula was often used to denote, not a particular instrument, but a certain class of instruments, appears certainly more tenable than the present usual one, which presumes the fidicula to have been the prototype of the violin.
3This may be the place to draw attention to a discovery which has escaped the notice of almost all our musical historians, but which is of considerable importance, especially in the present investigation. Among the sculptured relics from the ruins of the famous town Agrigentum, in Sicily, which have been rescued from oblivion, there is a sarcophagus on which two musical instruments are represented, precisely alike in form and construction, mounted with strings, but entirely different from the harp and lyre. As they are shown in somewhat different positions, the circumstance of our possessing two aspects of the same instrument greatly enhances the value of the representation. Fétis is, as far as I am aware, the only musical author who has given some account of this suggestive relic; however, his illustration of the two instruments ("Histoire Générale de la Musique," Vol. v., p. 250) is incorrect on some essential points. For instance, he exhibits the strings as being provided with a sort of cover near the bridge, whereas, in reality, this seems only to be the case on one of the instruments, owing to the sleeve of the player being close to the strings.
5As I am in possession of a faithful copy of the entire scene in which these instruments occur, I am able to give a detailed account of them. The sarcophagus is now in the cathedral of the town of Girgenti, in Sicily, where it serves as a baptismal font. Its present use is said to be injurious to its preservation; an exact description of it appears therefore all the more desirable to the musical antiquary. I shall endeavour to give it here in a few words. The instrument is of the oval shape, or boat shape, which characterises the kind of kit known as the sordino, and which is, in fact, a small rébec, originally constructed with three strings, later usually with four, like the violin-shaped kit. The South Kensington Museum possesses some fine specimens of the
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