Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 39
Scan 39
The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1colouring varnishes may be estimated from this and from the fact that he prescribes cinnabar and orpiment (mercuric sulphide and arsenious sesquisulphide).
3M. Mailand writes (71):—"But, it may be said to "us, the Cremonese 'luthiers' perhaps had the secret "of a varnish which was not in commerce and which "has been lost with them. To that we reply, that we "well understand that a person may have been able, "doing better than his competitors, to have a secret, "which he has carried away with him in dying; but "that it is not supposable for an instant that a thing "which has existed for more than a century, and "which is transmitted during several generations of "luthiers, could remain secret. It must necessarily be "known to everybody, and has only been abandoned "at the moment when considerable progress is made "in the manufacture of varnishes. If it is objected "that there are differences in the varnish of such and "such a master, it is possible; but that would only "prove one thing, which is that some knew better "how to appropriate and employ them than others. "These nuances make themselves felt, for the rest, "more in the colour than in the varnishes themselves, "which were all composed of tender resins. It is "easy to be convinced of this. It is only necessary to "rub violins of this epoch with spirit of wine; there is "not one that will resist; if this operation is repeated "on objects varnished with fat, hard copal varnishes "which are made to-day, they cannot be moved."
5It is agreed that the old varnishes were soluble to some extent in alcohol; that they were not "fat, "hard copal varnishes."
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