Scan 145
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1of June, 1683, and was baptized on the 11th of the same month, in the parish of San Donato, at the Chapel of Ease of the Cathedral.
3The original of this extract is as follows:—"Guarneri (Giuseppe Antonio) figlio de' legittimi conjugi Giovanni Battista Guarneri ed Angela Locadella nacque nella parrocchia di San Donato aggregata alla Cattedrale il giorno 8 Giugno 1683 e batezzato il giorno 11 del detto mese.' Libro dei nati dal 1669 al 1692 G. dalla Cattedrale di Cremona, li 19 Settembre 1855. (Signé) Fusetti Giulio Vic°"—Fétis, notice of Anthony Stradivarius.
5The father of Guarneri del Gesù, namely Gio. Battista, was the son of Bernardo, a cousin of Andrea Guarneri. He does not appear to have had any knowledge of the manufacture of stringed instruments, and was thus an exception to the majority of a family which numbered many prominent makers within it. It has been asserted on all sides that Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù was a pupil of Antonio Stradivari, but in every case this statement has been made without a shadow of proof, either from recorded fact or analogy. That this bare assertion should have so long remained unchallenged is a matter of some surprise to the writer of these pages, who fails to see anything in common between the two makers, with the exception of the varnish, and perhaps the high finish, as apparent in the works of the second epoch of Guarneri. The following remarks on this point are the result of the most careful consideration of the subject, and may serve to assist the reader in forming an opinion.
7Had Giuseppe Guarneri received his early instructions from Stradivari, should we not expect his instruments to bear the character of the master in some slight degree?
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