Scan 33
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
6 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1pedestal when played, as also the Accordo, which is the Double Bass of modern times, but differently arranged as regards its strings. It had sometimes as many as seven or more strings, and the fingerboard was divided by frets similar to those of the Viol da Gamba. Besides the instruments here enumerated there was the Viol d'Amour, which had strings of wire passing through the bridge and tuned in unison with those passing over it. This instrument was probably the last of the order.
3M. Fétis mentions that towards the close of the fifteenth century the French reduced the Viol, and made from it the Violin as it now exists. It is said that the Violin is indicated in the Italian scenes at the end of the sixteenth century under the names of "piccoli Violini alla Francese" ("little Violins of the French fashion"), from which circumstance M. Fétis assumes that to the French people belongs the credit of introducing the Violin. The foundation upon which the assertion rests is somewhat weak, and needs other support to make it worthy of acceptance. If we turn to the Italian School, we find that Gaspar da Salo made Violins, and that he worked between the years 1560—1610; evidence sufficient to show that Violins were made out of France at the end of the sixteenth century.
5The superiority of the Violin over the Viol soon obtained for it the preference, and it rapidly came into general use. Of the ancient Viols, the only specimens that have been preserved are the Alto
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