Scan 185
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1of 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.1 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 which Stradivari made a new belly many years later, in his best style. It is certain that instruments as described by Lancetti have been recognized by intelligent connoisseurs as wholly the work of Stradivari (in which case, as may be imagined, they have no longer been allowed to sail under false colours, but have had their proper certificate of birth attached to them). In other instances the beautiful scroll of Stradivari has been recognized on the body of an Amati, or the sound-hole has shown that it was cut by the hand of Stradivari.
3Having met with a Violin by Stradivari (since the publication of the first edition of this work), dated 1666, it would
51 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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