page_title: History of the violin
section_title: Emergence of the violin
hierarchical_section_title: History of the violin / Emergence of the violin
context_page_description: The violin, viola, and cello were first made in the early 16th century, in Italy. The earliest evidence for their existence is in paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari from the 1530s, though Ferrari's instruments had only three strings. The Academie musicale, a treatise written in 1556 by Philibert Jambe de Fer, gives a clear description of the violin family much as we know it today.
  Violins are likely to have been developed from a number of other string instruments of the 15th and 16th centuries, including the vielle, rebec, and lira da braccio. The history of bowed string instruments in Europe goes back to the 9th century with the Byzantine lira.
  Since their invention, instruments in the violin family have seen a number of changes. The overall pattern for the instrument was set in the 17th century by luthiers like the prolific Amati family, Jakob Stainer of the Tyrol, and Antonio Stradivari, with many makers at the time and since following their templates.
context_section_description: The first clear record of a violin-like instrument comes from paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari. In his Madonna of the Orange Tree, painted 1530, a cherub is seen playing a bowed instrument which clearly has the hallmarks of violins. A few years later, on a fresco inside the cupola of the church of Madonna dei Miracoli in Saronno, angels play three instruments of the violin family, corresponding to violin, viola and cello. The instruments Ferrari depicts have bulging front and back plates, strings which feed into peg-boxes with side pegs, and f-holes. They do not have frets. The only real difference between these instruments and the modern violin is that Ferrari's have three strings, and a rather more extravagant curved shape. It is not clear exactly who made these first violins, but there is good evidence that they originate from northern Italy, in the vicinity (and at the time the political orbit) of Milan. Not only are Ferrari's paintings in this area, but at the time towns like Brescia and Cremona had a great reputation for the craftsmanship of stringed instruments.
  The earliest documentary evidence for a violin is in the records of the treasury of Savoy, which paid for "trompettes et vyollons de Verceil", that is to say, "trumpets and violins from Vercelli", the town where Ferrari painted his Madonna of the Orange Tree. The first extant written use of the Italian term violino occurs in 1538, when "violini Milanesi" (Milanese violinists) were brought to Nice when negotiating the conclusion of a war.
  The violin quickly became very popular, both among street-musicians and the nobility, which is illustrated by the fact that Charles IX of France commissioned an extensive range of string instruments in the second half of the 16th century. Around 1555, the French court imported a dance band of Italian violinists and in 1573, during one of Catherine de Medici's celebration "the music was the most melodious one had ever seen and the ballet was accompanied by some thirty violins playing very pleasantly a warlike tune," wrote an observer.
  The oldest confirmed surviving violin, dated inside, is the "Charles IX" by Andrea Amati, made in Cremona in 1564, but the label is very doubtful. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an Amati violin that may be even older, possibly dating to 1558 but just like the Charles IX the date is unconfirmed. One of the most famous and certainly the most pristine is the Messiah Stradivarius (also known as the 'Salabue') made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 and very little played, perhaps almost never and in an as new state. It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford.
caption: The cupola of Madonna dei Miracoli in Saronno , with angels playing violin, viola and cello.
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