Scan 246
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 190. See the scan on archive.org.
1cular. The form is flatter, the arching differently treated. The sound-hole, which is a masterpiece of gracefulness, reclines more. The curves of the middle bouts are more extended than in this maker's later instruments. The corners are brought out, though not prominently so. Here, too, we notice the change in the formation of the scroll. He suddenly leaves the form that he had hitherto imitated, and follows the dictates of his own fancy. The result is bold and striking, and foreshadows much of the character belonging to the bodies of the instruments of his latter period, and though it may seem daring and presumptuous criticism, I have often been impressed with the idea that these scrolls would have been more in harmony with his later works than those to which they belong. The varnish on the instruments belonging to the period under consideration is very varied. Sometimes it is of a rich golden colour, deliciously soft and transparent; in other instances he has used varnish of a deeper hue, which might be described as light red, the quality of which is also very beautiful. The purfling is a trifle wider, but narrower than that afterwards used.
3From the Arisi MSS. we have the following interesting information relative to this period:—
5"In the year 1685, on the 12th of March, Cardinal Orsini, Archbishop of Benevento,1 ordered
71 Vincenzo Maria Orsini (of the illustrious family of the Orsinis, Dukes of Gravina), born 1648, in the Neapolitan
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