Scan 221
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
4 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 169. See the scan on archive.org.
1by this great pioneer. But for this deviation, the works of the early Amati and a few others would have occupied a higher position than that which they now command. They were men possessing great abilities, and might easily have carried out the designs of the great Brescian maker. They appear, however, to have arrived at a different conclusion, as regards the form of their instrument, from that shaped by Gasparo da Salò. Their works show an evident preference for the high model, and thus undid much that Gasparo had accomplished. It is clear that Gasparo only arrived at his conclusions after painstaking labour, for he commenced with the high form, and gradually, as experience taught, lowered it. It is, further, remarkable that the latter members of the Amati family pursued the same course as Andrea Amati (though in a less degree), after which they awoke, as it were, to the reasonableness of the example set by Gasparo, and gave us those instruments so highly thought of by the connoisseur, the form of which has much in common with that adopted by Niccolò Amati and perfected by Antonio Stradivari.
3It has been before remarked that Gasparo da Salò did not arrive at his conclusions without mature consideration. In fact, a long and deliberate process of experiment may be traced in his instruments. We find that at times his Violins and Violas were treated differently from
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