Scan 115
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 63. See the scan on archive.org.
1received extensive foreign patronage, their number being far in excess of that required to supply their own country's wants in the manufacture of Violins. Roger North, in his "Memoirs of Musick," evidences the demand for Italian Violins in the days of James the Second: he remarks, "Most of the young nobility and gentry that have travelled into Italy, affected to learn of Corelli, and brought home with them such favour for the Italian music, as hath given it possession of our Parnassus. And the best utensil of Apollo, the Violin, is so universally courted and sought after, to be had of the best sort, that some say England hath dispeopled Italy of Violins." We also read of William Corbett, a member of the King's band, having formed about the year 1710 a "gallery of Cremonys and Stainers" during his residence in Rome.
3Brescia was the cradle of Italian Violin-making, for the few makers of bowed instruments (among whom were Gaspard Duiffoprugcar, who established himself at Bologna, Dardelli of Mantua, Linarolli and Maller of Venice) cannot be counted among Violin makers. The only maker, therefore, of the Violin of the earliest date, it remains to be said, was Gasparo da Salò, to whom belongs the credit of raising the manufacture of bowed instruments from a rude state to an art. There may be something in common between the early works of Gasparo da Salò and Gaspard Duiffoprugcar, but the link that connects
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