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| PAGANINI'S GIUSEPPE GUARNERI. Date 1743. (IN THE MUNICIPAL PALACE, GENOA.) |
THE VIOLIN
ITS FAMOUS MAKERS AND THEIR IMITATORS
GEORGE HART
OF STRADIVARI, GUARNERI, AMATI, AND OTHERS, AND
ADDITIONS AND EMENDATIONS BY THE AUTHOR'S
SON AND TOWRY PIPER
"To perfect that wonder of travel—the locomotive—has perhaps notrequired the expenditure of more mental strength and application, thanto perfect that wonder of music—the Violin." W. E. GLADSTONE.
LONDON
DULAU AND CO., LIMITED, 37, SOHO SQUARE, W.
SCHOTT AND CO., 159, REGENT STREET.
1909
PREFACE TO THE ENLARGED AND REVISED EDITION
The favourable reception accorded to the previous editions of thiswork has not only added greatly to the pleasure attending thepreparation of a new and revised edition, but has encouraged me tospare no effort within my power to render the volume as interestingand complete as possible. In making these endeavours, the bulk of thebook has been necessarily increased by additional information, spreadover all the sections of the work, but chiefly on those which treat ofthe Early History of the leading instrument, and the Italian branchesof the subject.
It is in connection with the Italian divisions of the book that thereader will discover, I venture to hope, information which he willregard as interesting in its character, besides being of somehistorical value. The greater part of this new matter has beenobtained from original MSS. belonging to the trustees of the CivicMuseum at Cremona, which Institution is located in the palacebequeathed to the citizens, together with its contents, by theMarchese Ponzoni. In the year 1872, Dr. F. Robolotti, the learnedhistoriographer of the town, and a distinguished physician, and theMarchese Senatore Araldi Erizzo, presented to the Institution referredto an important collection of rare books and documents illustrative ofthe history of the City of Cremona. Among these are two sets of MSS.,numbered respectively 729 and 431, the contents of which shed muchlight on the Italian sections of our subject, and constitute thesource of the principal portion of the additional informationcontained in the following pages. The first-named MS. is the work ofDon Desiderio Arisi, a monk of the order of St. Jerome, who in thequiet of his cell in the Convent of St. Sigismondo set himself thetask of writing brief notices of Cremonese worthies. The MS. is dated1720, and includes a most interesting account of the patronage en