Escuela Franco-Belga

JACOB AUGUSTUS

OTO

78? 09 It 64-43078 Otto 1 treatise of the structure and preservatipn of the violin

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A TREATISE
ON THE

STRUCTURE AND PRESERVATION

VIOLIN
AND ALL OTHER BOW-INSTRUMENTS;
TOGETHER WITH AN ACCWNT OF

THE MOST CELEBRATED MAKERS,
AND OF THE GENUINE
C1TATIACTKKISTIOS OF TTIEIB

JACOB AUGUSTUSOTTO,
MAKER TO THE COURT OP THE
GKRAND DTTKE OP WEIMAH.

TTIANSLATKT> FROM TIIK OBIOINAL, WITH ADDITIONS AN DILLFSTBATIOKS.

JOHN BISHOP,
OF OHKr

OXTUTIT EDITION

:

IWRTTtKR B NT L \nOIBD

L

ROBERT COCKS
MUSIO
PlTjsr.THirKRS,

'&

CO.,

N P O N" NKW BITRLINOTON STREET,
:
f

QQKKN VK1TOKIA,

ANJ)

BY APPOTKTMMNT, TO HRTt MrtST ORAC1TOUS MAJKSTY JTJK LATE TMPKHIALMAJRHTY KAK)LEON 1^1.
AKt) CO.

MARSHALL

WHITTA1CBE AND

,00,

3SIPOCOLXXV.
Pr/c

THE COUNTEBFEIT INSTRUMENTS.

I HAVE had about tMrty Gremonese violins under
hands, of the following makers.

my

The

oldest

of the seventeenth century

were made by Jerome Amati> at the beginning : after him came Anthony Amati,
;

in the middle of that century

and, then, NicholasAmati,

towards the end. Anthony Straduarius, of Cremona, flourished at the end of the same century, and Joseph Guarnerius, at
the beginning of the eighteenth century.*
All the instruments above referred to

were formed
six

after

the simplest rules of mathematics

;

and the

which I

received unspoiled were so constructed, that the belly
thickest in the middle,

was
thenit

where the bridge stood;

it

diminished about one-third at the /-holes, and, where
rested on the sides,
dle.
it

was only half as thick as in the midThe same proportion was observed in the length. The
was maintained
as far as the length

thickness of the middle
of the bass-bar,

and then diminished one-half to the upper
blocks.

and lower end

The breadth was

soproportioned

that the cheeks were three -fourths the thickness of the

breast

;

and the edges

all

round, only one-half the thickness,

* For more exact historical details and additional particulars of the Cremonese makers, and some others, see Appendix, No.
II,

Tr.

17

These

are

the proportions best

adapted

for

obtaining

a

Whoever thinks that I full,round, and sonorous tone. should give an exact scale for the particular height, fall, and
thickness of the belly, calculated in hundredth-parts of an
is

inch,

mistaken.

Such

calculations I certainly

make

for

myself ; but, here, I am not writing for instrument-makers, nor for those who busy themselves with repairing, without being able to construct a violin ; but simply forprofessors

and amateurs, in order to give them a general knowledge of the correct proportions of a good instrument.

The back
but
Is,

is

in

most

formed in the same proportion as the violins, rather thicker in the wood.

belly,

During two years, I measured and calculated the proportions of the very best instruments, according to the rules of

mathematics, under the late HerrErnst, Concert- director at

Gotha, with whom I also studied music for three years, Herr Ernst himself made excellent violins, *as the reader is doubtless aware,

which
if

will in

a few years approximate to the

Cremonese,

they escape the misfortune of falling into the
!

hands of such gentry as I have before described

Jerome Amati, of Cremona, by whom the oldest violins,...