Scan 415
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
6 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 343. See the scan on archive.org.
1the Prince de Chimay, it is said, for the enormous sum of six hundred pounds—a price far in excess of the average value of Maggini's instruments. In this instance, the association of De Bériot with the instrument is sufficient, perhaps, to account for the rare price set upon it.
3We now reach the time when Carlo Bergonzi began to be regarded as a maker of the first class. As a Cremonese maker, he was one of the latest to receive the attention to which his exceptional merits fairly entitled him. To English connoisseurs belongs the credit of appreciating this great maker.
5The recognised merits of the makers already named naturally caused a demand for Italian instruments generally. If the masters could not be had, the pupils must be found; hence a whole host of Italian makers, quite unknown in England fifty years since, became familiar to the connoisseur. The works of Guadagnini, Gagliano, Grancino, Santo Serafino, Montagnana, and others whose names it is unnecessary to give, passed from Italy into France and England, until the various schools of Italian Violin manufacture were completely exhausted. When we look back, it is surprising that so much has been achieved in such a brief space of time. The knowledge of Italian works in 1800 was of the slenderest kind, both in France and England; in less than three-quarters of a century those countries contrived to possess themselves of the finest specimens of Cremonese instruments,
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