Books › The "Tuscan". A short account of a violin by Stradivari, made for Cosimo de Medici, Grand duke of Tuscany, dated 1690, 1891 › scan 14
Scan 14
The "Tuscan". A short account of a violin by Stradivari, made for Cosimo de Medici, Grand duke of Tuscany, dated 1690, 1891
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1by the increased compass and elevated pitch of modern times, it is almost absolutely in the same state as when it received the last finishing touches from Stradivari himself. The delicate surface of the matchless orange-red-brown varnish shows scarcely a sign of the wear of the two centuries passed since it was first laid on; and even the exposed projecting lines of the scroll, which in old violins, almost without exception, have lost the original dark varnish used to pick them out, are here scarcely rubbed, and the lines remain almost as fresh and distinct as if the instrument were a new one.
3The violin was made in 1690, when Stradivari had been for some ten years established for himself, in his house in the Piazza San Domenico. At this time he was far advanced in what is known as his second period, in which his innate genius, matured by experience, freed him from the direct influence of his master Amati, and enabled him to carry into successful execution the original conceptions which were the true foundation of his great frame.
5Although the work of Stradivari may broadly speaking be divided into periods, the instruments made in any one of these were not mechanically precise reproductions of one another, but were, for the most part, independent creations; and many of those belonging to the earlier periods foreshadowed the higher developments of form to which he afterwards attained.
7This instrument in particular shows how little fettered he was, even at this time, by the early influence of Amati, and marks his advance towards the culmination of his creative power in the grand pattern period of 1700 to 1725. In its flatter form, freer curves, and altogether bolder conception, it strongly suggests the later period, while possessing at the
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