Books › The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. With numerous wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1875 › scan 68
Scan 68
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. With numerous wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1875
7 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 28. See the scan on archive.org.
1SECTION IV.
2The Italian School.
4THE fifteenth century may be considered as the period when the art of making instruments of the Viol class took root in Italy, a period rich in men labouring in the cause of Art. The long list of honoured names connected with Art in Italy during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries is a mighty roll-call indeed! The memory dwells upon the number of richly-stored minds that have, within the limits of these three centuries, bequeathed their art treasures to all time, and if here we cannot suppress a comparison of the art world of the present Italy with that of the periods named, still less can we fail to be astonished as we discover the abyss in point of merit into which Italy must be judged to have sunk, when measured by the high standard which in former days she set herself. But perhaps the greatest marvel of all is the rapidity of this decadence when it once set in, as it did immediately after the culminating point of artistic fame had been reached.
6To inquire into the many causes of the decline of art in Italy would be wholly foreign to the purposes of a book on Violins, however capable the
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.