Scan 103
The violin & its story : or the history & construction of the violin, 1905
12 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 87. See the scan on archive.org.
1tenacious—tougher, in short—than those of fat ones. The thinness of the animal must not, however, be the result of under-feeding or defective nourishment, for in that case its membranes will be as unsuitable as, or even more unsuitable than, those obtained from fat or overfed animals.
3The Neapolitans use for first strings only the gut of lambs, from seven to eight months old; and in no case must the lambs be over a year old. In Germany, the gut of lambs of that age cannot possibly be obtained in any quantity, as they are very seldom killed so young. In France and Germany alike the gut of sheep and calves is used, and both are too thick to make good E strings.
5Angelo Angelucci, the founder of the Neapolitan string industry, is said to have employed in Naples alone over one hundred men whose sole duty it was to visit daily the slaughter-houses where the lambs and goats were killed, and buy the entrails of each animal. These entrails were at once cleansed and purified, lest the gut should turn a dark colour.
7The entrails are sorted out into nine classes of varying quality and strength, the finest and slenderest pieces being selected for the best strings. The gut is sometimes fifty feet long, and the strong, thick ends are always cut off.
9The great point is next to free the gut from all foreign constituents, from the mucous membrane, and from all appendages whatever. This can only be accomplished by a kind of induced putrefaction or maceration, for which a high and uniform temperature is necessary. In Italy the period from Easter to October is the best for string manufacture. The production of strings from gut is the result of a kind of fermentation, and therefore, as we have just observed, a uniformly high temperature is an absolute necessity; and even in Italy sudden changes of temperature will cause the operation to fail.
11The selected pieces of gut of one quality are then put for twenty-four hours into fresh water, which must frequently be changed.
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