Scan 57
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
5 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1supplying us with authentic information of considerable value with regard to the gradual emancipation of this class of instrument from frets, and foreshadowing the union of the Geige or Fiddle with the Viol. Passing to the question of form given by the Italians early in the sixteenth century to Viols, we find the Violono or Bass Viol with its upper and lower sides, middle bouts, belly, and sound-holes almost identical with those of the Tenor Viols, the chief difference being in the back of the latter, which is modelled, whilst the former is flat. This was the form given to the Violono by Gasparo da Salò, and which has been changed in the upper portion of the body of the instrument, to permit of modern passages being executed with greater facility. The original finger-board was short, and generally fretted. The number of strings was five or more, and not as we now string them with three. It will be seen that this form of instrument gives us what Mr. Charles Reade describes as the invention of Italy, namely "the four 'corners.'" The same author in speaking of the order of invention remarks that he is puzzled "to time the Violono, or as we childishly call it (after its known descendant) the Double Bass. If I were so presumptuous as to trust to my eye alone, I should say it was the first of them all." With this opinion I entirely agree, and I am also in unison with Mr. Reade in believing that the large Viola (played on or between the knees) was the next creation, the design of which was that of the Violono or Double Bass already referred to. The next and most important step was in all probability to make one of two readings
2supplying us with authentic information of considerable value with regard to the gradual emancipation of this class of instrument from frets, and foreshadowing the union of the Geige or Fiddle with the Viol. Passing to the question of form given by the Italians early in the sixteenth century to Viols, we find the Violono or Bass Viol with its upper and lower sides, middle bouts, belly, and sound-holes almost identical with those of the Tenor Viols, the chief difference being in the back of the latter, which is modelled, whilst the former is flat. This was the form given to the Violono by Gasparo da Salò, and which has been changed in the upper portion of the body of the instrument, to permit of modern passages being executed with greater facility. The original finger-board was short, and generally fretted. The number of strings was five or more, and not as we now string them with three. It will be seen that this form of instrument gives us what Mr. Charles Reade describes as the invention of Italy, namely "the four corners."1 The same author in speaking of the order of invention remarks that he is puzzled "to time the Violono, or as we childishly call it (after its known descendant) the Double Bass. If I were so presumptuous as to trust to my eye alone, I should say it was the first of them all." With this opinion I entirely agree, and I am also in unison with Mr. Reade in believing that the large Viola (played on or between the knees) was the next creation, the design of which was that of the Violono or Double Bass already referred to. The next and most important step was in all probability to make one of two readings
41 "Cremona Violins," Pall Mall Gazette, 1872. This reference applies to the corners and corner-blocks as made by Gasparo and all makers to the present time, in contradistinction to those seen in the Viol da Gamba and early German Viols.
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