Scan 237
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 71. See the scan on archive.org.
1ninety-three years, which decides the correctness of the statement made by Lancetti (upon the authority of Count Cozio di Salabue, who received the information from Paolo Stradivari in 1775) that "Antonio worked up to the age of ninety-three years."
3In the absence of direct information concerning the life of Stradivari, we must turn to his instruments for such evidence as we require; and these, happily, give us a greater insight into his career than would be readily imagined. I am not aware that any Violin of Stradivari is known in which it is stated that he was a pupil of Niccolò Amati, or that the assumption has been maintained on any other grounds than the indisputable evidence furnished by the early instruments of this great maker.* Never has affinity in the art of Violin manufacture been more marked than that between Stradivari and Niccolò Amati during the early life of the former. I have, in another place, remarked upon the almost invariable similarity occurring between the works of master and pupil, and have used this canon in refutation of the doctrine that Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù was ever a pupil of Antonio Stradivari. Lancetti states that the instruments of Stradivari made in 1665, and others in 1666, bear the label of Niccolò Amati, and instances one that was in the collection of Count Cozio, to
5* Upon reference to Lancetti's MSS., I find that he states Stradivari used a label with the words "Nicholai Amati Alumnus," about 1666.
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