Scan 115
The violin & its story : or the history & construction of the violin, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 99. See the scan on archive.org.
1essentials of the art of violin making. Most of them have regarded the sound-holes as mere openings to let out the tone from the body of air vibrating within the instrument. But no sooner do we place these "mere openings" in another position, or alter their form, than we cause the instrument to lose the greater part of its special violin tone. The famous Savart, when he made his four-cornered "fiddle" with flat back and belly, with two straight slits for the sound-holes, had merely in view two vibrating flat slabs of wood, one of which transmitted its vibrations to the other by means of a simple wooden post.
3Antonio Bagatella, in 1782, won a prize from the University of Padua for his rules for producing, with the greatest geometrical precision, the various parts of the violin, down to the smallest and apparently most insignificant member. These rules were the result of thirty years' work and experience, and they are as follows:—
5"Draw a line as long as the violin is to be,* and divide this line into seventy-two exactly equal parts. This is the foundation of the entire work. The lines marking off these seventy-two parts must be drawn with the utmost exactitude, for upon this everything depends. This vertical line divides the belly into two exactly equal halves. (See Fig. 18). Through this line draw seven other lines at right angles with it, with all possible care and precision. Draw the first line through point 14, the second through point 20, the third through point 25, and the others through points 33, 43, 48, and 57. Then put one leg of the compasses on the point X, measure off nine points, and from the centre X describe the two small arcs A and B. Then take the point 24 as a centre, open the compasses to the point X, and describe the arc A X B. Cut off, from the horizontal line through point 14, two parts C, C; take each of these as a centre, and,
7* This means of course the body of the violin, and not the entire length from the scroll.—Translator
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