Scan 442
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 350. See the scan on archive.org.
1the care and charge of a barge-master named Gobbi.
3It is by no means uncommon to discover the memories of men kept green in our minds from causes strangely curious and unexpected. Many seek to render their names immortal by some act the nature of which would seem to be imperishable, and chiefly fail of their object; whilst others, obscured and unthought of, live on by accident. Imagine the paints and brushes, the pencils and palettes, the easel and the sketches of Raffaele having been given over to a Pò barge-master, and that chance had divulged his name. Would he not, in these days of microscopic biography have furnished work for the genealogist, and been made the subject of numberless pictures? Hence it is that the admirers of Stradivari cannot fail to remember the name of honest Gobbi, who carried the chest wherein were the tools with which the Raffaele of Violin-making wrought the instruments which have served to render his memory immortal.
5Soon after the date of Paolo's last letter, he became seriously ill, dying on the 9th of October, 1776. The correspondence was then taken up by his son Antonio. He says in his letter dated November 21st, 1776, "I shall send you the case with the patterns and tools of my late grandfather Antonio, which was packed and closed before my father was bedridden. You will find it well arranged, with mark on it, and with red tape and
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