Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 37
Scan 37
The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904
14 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1No. 3, "To make a liquid to be used to varnish 'paintings'; Fioravanti No. 8, 'This varnish is ap-plied to skins'; No. 10, 'Turkish varnish, which 'is also used to varnish sheet-iron and for printers.' Why is there no mention of 'varnish for violin- 'makers' or 'for the makers of musical instruments'? Why does not M. Mailand point out the particular prescriptions on which he relies for the support of his theory?
3It very often happens that the evidence sought is not the evidence obtained; so in this case, although M. Mailand did not get the evidence which he sought, he is good enough to give me some evidence which I wanted:—
5The majority of the authors were members of the Church of Rome—"les Pères" Auda, Zahn, Morley, Coronelli, "le R. P. (révérend père)" Bonanni, Jésuite.
7Alexis (Piémontais), writing in 1550, in his No. 7 says, "and cook the whole for the space of one hour 'in the water-bath (au bain-marie) in a vessel of 'glass well corked.'"
9This certifies that the water-bath and its use were known as early as 1550.
11Fioravanti (Bologna, 1564) writes of linseed-oi (for its conversion to a boiled oil):—"The most common 'way is to boil the oil until it burns the vanes of a 'feather dipped into it; some add a crust of bread, 'according to the quantity of oil which they are 'treating, because it absorbs its grease and makes it 'more easy to dry.'"
13Boiled linseed-oil was evidently known before 1564.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.