Scan 151
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1These splendid chefs-d'œuvre are strangely mixed with those commonly known as the "prison fiddles"—a sorry title. The name arose from the story current in Italy that Guarneri made some Fiddles whilst undergoing imprisonment, and that the gaoler's daughter procured him the necessary materials, which were of the coarsest kind. M. Fétis refers to the story, and mentions that Benedetto Bergonzi, who died in 1840, used to relate it. Allusion is also made to it by Vincenzo Lancetti, to whom it was doubtless communicated by Count Cozio di Salabue. These references lead to the belief that the tradition has some foundation in fact, though not to the extent that he ended his days in durance vile. Lancetti refers to the offence as an encounter with some person in which his antagonist lost his life. A, deplorable circumstance of this kind may have occurred without the accused having been criminally at fault, though he may have suffered the penalty of being so. His reported love of wine and pleasure, his idleness and irregularity, in all probability were statements added by successive narrators of the prison story. A recent search made by Canon Bazzi in the obituary registers of the cathedral at Cremona, discovers the fact that one Giacomo Guarneri died in prison on the 8th of October, 1715. Bearing in mind how frequently we find fact and fiction jumbled together in historical pursuits, the prison story in connection with the name of Giuseppe Guarneri may have no other foundation than a story, long current, that a person named Guarneri was imprisoned, and wholly regardless of identity.
3I have referred to the three periods of this remarkable man's life in relation to his art, and it remains to point out some other features in his work and material. His selection
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