The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-07-16
FAMous vloLINs.
The Instruments which Have Made tn.
CITY of Elre.nonna l,nlnh.n+o.a

The Instruments which Have Made the
City of CremOna Celebrated.
The hot sun and splendid river, sup.
plying the fine wood market, and the
commercial prosperity enjoyed by Gre
mona, seems to have attracted and
fixed there the manufacture of the best
TiOlins in the world. On the facade to
the right of the Church of ST. Dominic
stood the house of the Amati. There
worked Andrew, the founder of the
school, making in 1850 close copies of
the Brescians, Casper and Maggini.
Here was born the great Nicholas
Amati (1596-16S4).
On the same workbench, as a student
in the school of the immortal Nicholas,
sat Andrew Guarnerius and the incom-
parable Stradivarlus, finishing their
masters violins and copying for years
his various models with supreme skill
and docility.
Almost next door, probably on the
death of Nicolas Amati, Stradivarius
set up his shop, opposite the west front
of the big church; there for fifty years
more he worked with uninterrupted
assiduity; and next door to him the
family of the Guarnerii had their work
rooms, and in that little square were
all the finest viOlins made in the short
space of about one hundred and fifty
years. The body of Stradivarius lies
in the Church of the Rosary, not a
stones throw from his own house; and
so these great men died, and were
buried, working in friendly rivalry,
and leaving their echoes to roll from
pole to pole.
The Incompatible Antonius Stradi-
varius, or Stradivari, lived between
1644-1737. His latest known violin
bears date 1876, and mentions his age,
ninety-twO. He worked without haste
and without rest. His life was inter-
rupted only by the siege of Cremona in
1902. But his art knew no politics,
and the courts of Spain and France
were quite as eager to get his violins as
the Governor of Cremona or the Duke
of Modena.
Up to about 1868 he simply was an
apprentice of Nicolas. We find scrolls
and sound holes cut by the pupil on
the masters violins. He even made
and labeled for Nicolas. 1868 he
leaves his masters shop and sets up
for himself. But for thirty years this
consummate student, while making
every conceivable experiment with
flutes, guitars and yiolins, practically
copied closely the best models of Nico-
las Amati.
The varnish, when not, as is usual,
rubbed off, inclines to light orange
with clear golden tints. The tone is so
sweet and sensitive that it seems to
leap forth before the bow has touched
the strings, and goes on like a bell
long after the bow has left them. To
fine Joseph Guarnerius you have some
times to lay siege, and then you are re-
warded, but the Nicolas Amati is won
almost before it is wooed.
Although Stradivarius worked down
to the last year of his life, still, after
1870, feeling hand and sight beginning
to fail, he seldom signed his work.
We catch one, and only one, glimpse
of him as he lived and moved and had
his being at Cremona in 1870, Piazza
DOmenicO. Old Polledro, late chapel
master at Turin, describes ''Antonius,
the lutemaker," as an intimate friend
of his master. He was high and thin,
and looked like one worn with much
thought and incessant industry. In
summer he wore a white cotton night
cap, and in winter one of some wooden
material. He was never seen without
his apron and white leather, and every
day was to him exactly like every
other day. His mind was always riv-
eted upon his own pursuit, and he
seemed neither to know or to desire
the least change of occupation. His
violins sold for four golden livres
apiece, and were considered the best in
Italy; and as he had never spent any
thing except upon the necessaries of
life and his own trade, he saved a good
deal of money, and the supplemented
Cremonese used to make jokes about
his thriftiness, and the prOverb passed,
''As rich as Stradivarius.
A traveller who lately visited his
house, still standing in the square of
CremOna, remarked that it was heated
through with the sun like an oven.
He said you might sit and sweat there
as in Turkish bath. That was how
the Cremona makers dried their wood,
and so it was their oils distilled slowly
and remained always at high temper
allure, their varnish soaked into the
pine bellies and sycamore backs be-
meath the tropical heat of those seven
teenth century summers.
Joseph Anthony Guarnerius del his
1687-1745), towers a head and shout
ders above the other iIlustrious Guar
nerii-viz., Andrew and Joseph, his
sons. His last period is troubled by
certain inferior violins called prison
fiddles. The tale runs that Joseph
was imprisoned for some political Of
tense, and was supplied with refuse
wood by the jailer's daughter. The
prison fiddle is boon to fOrgers; their
dad fiddles pass freely for interesting
''prison Joseph"
With Carlo Bergonzi (1718-1755) the
Guadagnini (171O-175O) the great
Cremona school comes to an end.
The very varnish disappears, the cum
ming in wood selections seems to fail
the pale reflectors of dying art, and
the passion for vigor and finish has
also departed. The violin, although it
eliminated, was not exhausted at Gre
mona, but it would lead me into a new
branch of my subject to deal with the
other schools. These, after all, are
but reflections, more or less pale or
perfect, of the incompatible CremOnese
masters. Boston Courier.
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