Scan 323
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
6 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Violin playing. He had followers in every part of Italy. There was Clari at Florence, Vitali at Modena, Visconti at Cremona (who, it is said, tendered his advice to Stradiuarius upon the construction of his instruments—advice, I fancy, little needed), Veracini at Bologna, and a host of others.
3We must now retrace our steps somewhat, in order to allude to another Violinist who considerably influenced the progress of the leading instrument out of Italy, viz., Jean Baptiste Lully. The son of a Tuscan peasant, born in the year 1633, Lully's name is so much associated with the romantic in the history of Violin playing that he has been deprived in a great measure of the merit justly his due for the part he took in the advancement of the instrument. The story of Lully and the stew-pans* bristles with interest for juvenile musicians, but the hero is often overlooked by graver people on account of his culinary associations. When Lully was admitted to the Violin band of Louis XIV. he found the members very incompetent: they could not play at sight, and their style was of the worst description.
5* Lully having shown a disposition for music, received some instructions in the rudiments of the art from a priest. The Chevalier de Guise, when on his travels in Italy, had been requested by Mademoiselle de Montpensier, niece of Louis XIV., to procure for her an Italian boy as page, and happening to see Lully at Florence, he chose him for that purpose, on account of his wit and vivacity, and his skill in playing on the guitar. The lady, however, not liking his appearance, sent him into her kitchen, where he was made an under scullion, and amused himself by arranging the stew pans in tones and semitones, upon which he would play various airs, to the utter dismay of the cook.
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