Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 41
Scan 41
The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904
15 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1"and aloes, which, it is said, has the property of
2"preserving wood from becoming worm-eaten. These
3"resins dissolved in alcohol are an excellent size,
4"which cannot interfere with the liberty of the tables,
5"nor the desiccation of the wood, since the alcohol
6"evaporates at once."
8M. Mailand easily smooths over missing links in his evidence. Here is an interesting example (93):—
9"Alexis does not speak of gamboge, which, however,
10"was known in his time."
12Having made up his mind to sizing as a way out of this difficulty (the colour of the worn part being yellow, while the thicker pellicle appeared orange or red), M. Mailand proceeds to account for the use of size as a preliminary coat—the instructed reader will observe how many mistakes he makes in endeavouring to support his theory. He writes (81):—"Is it necessary to size instruments before varnishing them?
13"We do not hesitate to reply affirmatively; for if they were not sized the two or three first (sic!) coats of varnish would enter the wood; they would remain completely dull until saturation of the wood, which, not being able to absorb any more of it, would be sized by the varnish itself: this is easy to explain.
14"The wood, by its cellular canals, fulfils the office of a sponge; it absorbs the most fluid part of the varnish, and so much the more the longer it has previously undergone desiccation; in consequence the instrument will be saturated with essence, with a proportion of resins and of colouring matters, of which the surplus will remain on the surface, at least, if the varnish is very viscid. These resins deprived of a portion of their essence, being left to
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