Books › The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1906 › scan 163
Scan 163
The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1906
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Further Adventures of the Viol
3alchemic, and mystical is infinitely more satisfying to me than the commonplace credence of a whole encyclopædia full of pleasantly convincing and utterly unexciting facts.
5Perhaps because so perfect a thing as the violin could flower from no one direct tree line, the varieties and side developments of the viol family are legion. Most of them seem to have been grafted on Italian soil.
7I have already submitted the old theory that the bow instrument went to Spain, passing Italy by completely, and not returning until many years later, with the rise of the troubadours' power. This doubtless is the case,—one certainly does not dare to question the word of the wise; but one is amazed to find how quickly the newly imported viol grew in Italy, gaining in less than a century (if the learned men speak truth) from twelve to fifteen variations. It is odd, too, that the country longest neglected in the sowing of the seed should eventually be the richest in harvest.
9Kerlino, or Gerlino, of Nüremberg, as we shall discover later, is credited with introducing viols into Italy. Tieffenbrücker, Dardelli, Da Salò, and others developed the making of them into an art; which of them made the first violin is, as has been said before, a debatable question.
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