How, when and where the specific technological features of the violin family appeared Christian Rault,  Michaelstein, 2007.

Introduction

Description of the medieval vièle

Fig. 1 Medieval vièle as it appears on the Gate of Glory in Santiago de Compostela (1188), front and back.

From the mid-eleventh century, we find in early pictures[7] the same instrumental arrangements on pear-shaped instruments: two pairs of strings plus an external drone, frontal pegbox, symmetrical sound holes, tail piece, etc. (figure 2).

A medieval rebec?

We have here to open an important parenthesis to point out that, in contrast to such frequently repeated preconceived ideas, the body design of medieval instruments is not relevant enough for any classification or identification. In order to clarify our comprehension of the history and practices of musical instruments, we must first eliminate the imagined existence of the pear-shaped medieval rebec. We have shown elsewhere that no such medieval rebec has ever existed.[8]

If, as it is generally admitted, we recognise that the rebec is a pear-shaped instrument with a rounded back and a sickle-shaped pegbox with transversal pegs, we must remember that all these elements were borrowed from the Arabo-Andalucian raba¯b. We should recall that this very peculiar bowed instrument, still in use today on the southern Mediterranean coast, appeared in Moorish Spain during the midthirteenth century, almost two hundred years after the vièle (figure 3).[9]

A few years later in Paris, Jerome of Moravia, compiling the musical knowledge of his time in his Tractatus de musica,[10] dedicated his chapter 28 to a precise description of the well-known vièle but, as a well-informed scholar and connoisseur of Al-Farabi’s Kitab al-musiqi al-kabir,[11] he introduced this chapter with a description of the new Andalusian rabab which he called in Latin “rubeba”.[12]

As a matter of fact, the rubeba would never penetrate the Christian countries beyond the Kingdom of Aragon, including the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily and the Spanish-owned south of Italy and France.[13] With its oriental fingering with the left hand, avoiding the use of the fingerboard, and its belly made of skin, this profane instrument was ill-suited to the northern Christian musical practices, while the art of the vièle was at the height of its glory. Moreover, it was exactly the time when the only western bowed instrument which had kept, since the arrival of the bow, this primitive left hand eastern technique: the figure eight shaped giga,[14] was falling into disuse, pushed aside, along with the art of Léonin and Pérotin, by the “Ars Nova”.

Most of the earliest iconographical evidence showing the raba¯b in a Christian context (essentially the numerous paintings representing the Madonna and Child with angel musicians from the end of the fourteenth century to the fifteenth), denote by their geographical situation the singular socio-political context of more or less forced conversion of Jews and Moors to Christianity. From then on “Conversos” and “Mudejares” have to honour ostentatiously the true religion, through their music and their instruments (figure 4).

More often in the iconographical context of praise to the Madonna, the instrument would spread through the north as slowly as its gradual, but radical, changes occurred. Simultaneously with the first literary mention of its name, the word “rebec”,[15]  it appeared around 1380 played “da braccio” on the roof of Le Mans Cathedral. For almost the whole of the fifteenth century, it remains still unstable, taking up progressively many features of the vièle – such as the fingerboard, the wooden belly with opposite sound holes or the tail piece – but keeping the original Moorish pear-shaped round back and its more efficient system of pegbox with lateral pegs. Thus, at the very beginning of the sixteenth century, the features of the rebec are definitively fixed. In this way, the rebec is a true Renaissance and pre-Baroque instrument, almost contemporary with the appearance of the violin (figure 5).

This chronological evidence did not prevent our predecessors from creating confusion by retrospectively naming all pear-shaped vièles with the later term “rebec” which is an anachronism. In figure 2 above which shows the pear-shaped instrument from Moissac, we can easily recognise all the aforementioned ristics of the vièle: arrangement of the strings, flat pegbox, ribs, etc. The peculiar outline of its body is simply the first shape of the vièle we could call Romanesque. Later, in the middle of the twelfth century, with the new development of the Gothic style, its body increased to became oval, marking a clearer separation of the neck, but this evolution did not in any way alter its definition. Be it pear-shaped, oval or flamboyant, a vièle is still a vièle; as long as its architectural structure and strings settings are respected, the retrospective distinction between different instruments is entirely devoid of any historical or organological significance.

This parenthesis was opened to enable us to understand that, considering the documentary evidence at our disposal up to the present time, the first appearance of the vièle, with all its specificities, dates back to the year 1060 as shown in the Graduel de Nevers.[16] But we should now follow our instrument as far as the first half of the sixteenth century.

The medieval vièle from 1050 to 1550

We have such numerous evidence of the leading role of the vièle in medieval musical practice that it would be out of place in this paper to attempt to retrace all its appearances. One of the main points is to ascertain the permanence of our welldefined instrument through the centuries. Contrary to the general belief that in Middle Ages, far away from any rule, everybody was individually making his own instrument in his own way, an idea implying an incredible variety of shapes, tunings and stringing arrangements, a closer and critical observation[17] of our impressive iconographical corpus seems to indicate just the opposite. Leaving aside the insignificant variations of its body’s outlines, we find exactly the same instrument, as observed in Santiago and described by Jerome of Moravia, in many other places throughout the whole of Christian Europe – Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Flanders and the British Isles – during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. At the very beginning of the fourteenth century, in France, the use of a second external drone is first attested,[18] while representations of instruments began to become scarce in many parts of Europe, to be strongly concentrated in numerous paintings in Italy during the second half of the fifteenth century, revealing that the instrument had kept the same features since its origins (figure 6).

At the very beginning of the sixteenth century, a new alteration of its outline commands attention: the appearance of two corners. At the same time the use of seven strings (five on the fingerboard and two external drones) is generalised (figure 7). This is the last stage of evolution of the vièle which we could call late gothic or “flamboyant”. Henceforth, probably as a consequence of humanism and its fascination for antiquity, the instrument would be called the “lira” or “lira da braccio”.

This constancy through time and space is important in the way that it introduces new insights into medieval instrumental practices, as well as into instrument making. From now onwards we have to assume, on the one hand, the presence of well-established instrumental playing techniques; and thus the obligation for any young musician to be bound by the fixed requirements of his instrument. That means a gradual apprenticeship, a pedagogical transmission from a master, still deeply acquainted with the refined aesthetics of the time, to a pupil.

This constancy through time and space is important in the way that it introduces new insights into medieval instrumental practices, as well as into instrument making. From now onwards we have to assume, on the one hand, the presence of wellestablished instrumental playing techniques; and thus the obligation for any young musician to be bound by the fixed requirements of his instrument. That means a gradual apprenticeship, a pedagogical transmission from a master, still deeply acquainted with the refined aesthetics of the time, to a pupil.

On the other hand, the persistence of a particular instrument through the centuries presupposes the respect for many traditional rules of construction in order to make an instrument able to satisfy the numerous demands of any experienced musician. In the field of instrument making, the necessity of technical transmission seems again to involve the idea of some apprenticeship through specialised workshops and craftsmen and this, probably, earlier than used to be thought.[19]

During our short description of the vièle, we have pointed out the curious feature of the ribs as they appeared on Romanesque and Gothic carvings: always hollowed out along their length like a Roman roofing tile. The permanence of this particular feature seems to denote at least some technical trade transmissions through the centuries. Two instruments preserved since the year 1510 are a lira da braccio built by Andrea da Verona (figure 8) and an anonymous instrument, generally called “viola da braccio”, both instruments in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in ViennaTrennung richtig?(inv. Nos. SAM 89 and SAM 65). As is shown by the first iconographical testimonies of the vièle, these instruments have kept their ribs deeply carved out. Compared with our later instruments such as viols or violins, whose bent ribs are flat, this peculiarity is due to the use of a different, ancient, way of building stringed instruments. For more than five centuries instruments had been either completely carved (back, ribs, neck and pegbox) from a single piece of wood (monoxylous technique), before gluing the belly; or sawn all around their external outline including body, neck and pegbox from a wooden plank as thick as the ribs. Then, the resonating body could be hollowed out with a jig-saw before gluing back and belly (figure 8b).

Fig. 8 lira da braccio built by Andrea da Verona (1510), overall view	Fig. 8b Detail of the deeply carved rib “crown”

As is shown by the preserved instruments, this traditional, five hundred-year-old medieval working process was still in use in Italy during the sixteenth century.[20] In 1511, for Andrea da Verona, three pieces of wood were enough to build an instrument. We are now so close to the appearance of the violin, but so far from its construction, for which more than eighty pieces are necessary. How can we believe that a few decades later Catherine de Médicis, queen of France, ordered a large set of violins, violas, tenors and cellos from an unknown artisan in an unknown Italian borough called Cremona. Eight instruments from this set are actually known to possess all the features of the modern violin. How, when and where did each major transformation occur? And for what musical requirements?

The Iberian contributions

In the Iberian peninsula, the long and close cohabitation, since the eighth century, between Muslims, Jews and Christians had worked in the favour of cultural and technical interferences which reached their height, from the second half of the twelfth century onward, with the translations from Arabic to Latin of the ancient Greek texts. During the thirteenth century, the young Arabo-Andalucian culture adopted from northern practices the use of the bow for its new erudite music through the creation of the new rabab , while Christians, rediscovering the interest for plucking, adopted the primitive monoxylous ‘ûd they called “guittern”, and invented new instruments such as the citole.[21] This was the time when the increasing body of the lute required new construction techniques. Then, little pieces of thin bent wood were glued together to constitute a larger and lighter resonating body, before adding a separate neck.

Some time later in Aragon the medieval vièle, now called “vihuela”, was gradually changing. Its neck became longer and it borrowed the more functional Moorish angled pegbox from the lute and rabab. Another important feature is first seen in Spain between 1430 and 1440: the appearance of the corners.[22] From the last quarter of the same century, we witness simultaneously the enlargement of the instrument (which came to be played “da gamba”) and the use of transversal reinforcements bars for the belly, probably borrowed from the lute.[23] During the last years before 1500 the vihuela was introduced in Italy: not only in Naples, through the Spanish Neapolitan territories, and Rome, thanks to the election of the Spanish Pope Alfonso Borgia, but in the three major Italian powers of Venice, Milan and Florence.

Both iconographical and literary evidence show that the new large “viola alla spagnola” was quickly appreciated in Italian courts. Impressed by a concert given near Milan by Spanish musicians from Rome, Bernardino Prospero, chancellor of Ferrara wrote to Isabella d’Este, in a letter dated 6 March 1493, that the Spanish musicians were playing “viole quasi grande come mi”.[24] Isabella d’Este was at the forefront of innovations. Her long-standing Aragonese connection such as her dynastic alliance with the Borgias, made her able to order three “viole” from a Brescian maestro as early as 1495. In 1496, an inlay showing a viola da mano and a lira da braccio was made for her Grotta in the Ducal Palace, giving us an idea of their look. Again in the Ferrara milieu, in 1497, the painter Lorenzo Costa was creating a Madonna with Child and Saints where two angel musicians are playing “da gamba” two large viols. In these early Italian iconographical testimonies, we can see that both artists have so carefully represented three “viole grande” that we can observe their constructional process through the design of their ribs: each instrument was still built in the old medieval “sawn out” way (figure 9).

The later orders by the Marchioness of Mantua to the same maker (1499) let us understand that these viols were built in different sizes.[25] We are still at the very beginning of the developments of the consort music. In 1503 the terminology used in correspondence changed, and henceforth bowed viols were referred to as “vyoloni de archetto” or “violoni”, the large size of the instruments now being reflected by the augmentative form of the word “viola”.[26] But if it might be almost easy to saw small instruments up to a tenor size from a single piece of wood, it becomes a real problem for larger ones and, as the fascination for lower sounds was irreversible, makers had to invent (or to adopt) new constructional processes.

Referring to the numerous technical influences between Moors and Christians in Spain as to the close connections between the lute and the vihuela (flat bellies, transversal bars, angled pegbox, for example) we could imagine that, in such a climate of innovation, these new instruments, large in size, were still being built, in Spain, with bent ribs. But we have not met with any certainty on this point. In a painting by Bernardo Zenale decorating the parapet of the organ in Santa Maria di Brera in Milan, finished just before 1508, three angels are playing viols which look very like the later Venetian viols by Erbert, Linarol and the Sicilianos,[27] and it seems very possible that they were still built with bent ribs. But as far as we know, the first evidence for the use of this new technique on bowed instruments appeared a few years later, in an alterpiece painted for the convent of San Giovanni in Monte in Bologna by Raphael, in 1514 (figure 10). In this painting showing Santa Cecilia with other Saints, a broken viola is lying on the ground among other instruments, the cracks on the ribs clearly show the disposition of the grain of the wood. It is also the first appearance of external linings.[28]

The early violin

Since this latest decisive innovation, (bent ribs and linings) all the technical matters necessary for building a violin seemed to have come together. During the first decades of the sixteenth century, instruments really looking like violins did indeed appear, mostly in the hands of angels in Italian paintings (figure 11).

A few decades later Andrea Amati built such wonderful instruments that they are still considered as the founding masterpieces of the prestigious Cremonese school. As we know from the State Archives of Cremona,[29] Andrea Amati is first mentioned as a craftsman in 1539, and we can follow some important steps of his life through the notary deeds until his death which occurred in December 1577. But we should now consider the appearance of each technological feature as set out in a summarised chronology (see Appendix). Considering this succession of historical evidence, we cannot fail to note that such an essential element for our modern conception of the violin as the soundpost, seems to appear later than was hitherto believed to be the case.

We have already discussed elsewhere that we have no testimonies to the use of the soundpost in the medieval vièles.[30] The very few early bowed instruments surviving in largely original condition, on the whole corroborate the absence of such an internal reinforcement. The violetta of Santa Catarina de Vigri, usually kept at the Corpus Domini convent in Bologna, beside the body of the Saint (1413–1463), has no soundpost. In the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna are preserved two early bowed instruments built in the sawn-out technique: a lira da braccio by Andrea da Verona c.1511 (figure 8), and the so-called “viola da braccio” (c. 1530); neither was conceived with a soundpost. The same can be said for the last decades of the sixteenth century about all the Venetian viols by the Sicilianos (Linarol or Erbert), built with bent ribs and with flat, bent or carved bellies supported underneath by transverse bars, as with the ancient vihuelas – but without soundpost. The belly of the viol by Zanetto in Brussels is strengthened (as is the viola da braccio from Vienna or the later vihuela in the Encarnación convent in Avila) with a thicker central section of the belly.

The viol from Brescia, by Gasparo da Salo (1575), now in the Ashmoleum Museum, only bears a central spine in its axis. Even from the end of the sixteenth century, the anonymous guitar-shaped viol in the Dolmetsch collection bears this same axial reinforcement, as do other guitar-shaped viols from Brescia. This structural answer to the pressure of strings is still in use in the first half of the seventeenth century as testified by the original front of a small bass violin attributed to Joseph Mayer, in the Berlin Instrumentenmuseum (MIN 5202) and studied by Karel Moens.[31] In my own workshop I have come across an eighteenth century German violin with the same axial spine.

All these early instruments preserved in original condition clearly testify that many experiments to develop sound projection and musical possibilities of both viols and violins were still being carried out at the very end of the sixteenth century. We have to wait until the final decade to meet with certainty, for the first time, clear mention of the use of the soundpost. In London in 1596 William Shakespeare was giving his Romeo and Juliet. Three protagonists of this famous drama are musicians called respectively Rebeck, Catling and … Soundpost. Around the same year (shortly before 1594), real instruments had been put in the hands of music-making angels, sculpted in wood in the burial chapel of Freiberg Cathedral (Saxony). Five bowed instruments from the violin family (small discant, discant, tenor, and bass) had been built in workshops near Freiberg, most of them bearing a central soundpost of a rectangular section, situated between the two upper circles of the f-shaped soundholes.

This was now almost twenty years after Andrea Amati’s death, but considering the necessary time lag between any invention and its documentary expression,[32] this does not mean with certainty that the famous maker did not attempt any kind of acoustical experimentation. Nevertheless serious doubt must exist concerning the presence of an internal system inside the violins made by Andrea that we have now come to expect.

This suspicion that we had already formulated in 1995[33] is confirmed by the instrumentalist Sylvestro Ganassi, who published in Venice in 1542 (that is, three years after the beginning of Andrea’s attested activity) the first volume of his viol tutor Regola Rubertina. In his chapter IX, he suggested, in order to change the pitches of a consort of viols, tuning them “as low as it can still be fingered, and so still audible, lengthening the string by moving the bridge down towards the tailpiece […] in order to lower the pitch […] or moving the bridge up to shorten the strings and thus raise the pitch of the instrument.”[34] Every violonist and every violin maker knows perfectly well how important the precise placement of the bridge is between the “ff” for it to be in the best balance with both the soundpost and bassbar. Being able to move the bridge in such a free way simply means the lack of such an internal arrangement.

The situation of the bridge and internal reinforcements

As most of the earliest preserved instruments, which have been played in the following centuries, were drastically modified, we need iconography to show how they appeared in their historical context.

In the first depictions of vihuelas, or in the earliest Italian pictures of viols and violins, such as the paintings of Il Garofalo (1508–1512),[35] Ludovico Mazzolino (1510 to 1515),[36] Gaudenzio Ferrari (1529–1530),[37] or Lodovico Fiumicelli (1537)[38], we can see the bridges situated very low on the belly, near a short tail piece and generally very far from the central area set between the soundholes.[39] This peculiar situation, similar to the position of the bridges on plucked vihuelas and lutes, makes the introduction and placement of any kind of soundpost impossible. In such a case, there are only two possibilities: either the flat soundboard is supported by transversal bars, as in the lutes and vihuelas of the same period; or, as with the vièles and liras da braccio, the vaulted belly is conceived to sustain the pressure of the bridge by its thickness.

These practices, excluding the presence of any soundpost, continued during the life of Andrea Amati. We can clearly observe how the bridge is situated at a far distance from the centre, below the soundholes, on the Frontispiece of the Treatise by Ganassi (figure 12);[40] also in the portraits of Duiffoprugcar (1562)[41] and of a viol player by Vezzano (1519–1561);[42] as well as in numerous later testimonies during the seventeenth century.[43]

The vast iconographical production of these times confirms the still movable position of the bridges up to the eighteenth century.[44] But a noticeable change can be observed in the later pictures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the varying location of the bridge, not yet stabilised in its modern central place, becoming progressively closer to the soundholes, and very often near their lower end. This evolution very likely indicates the generalisation of the use of the central soundpost, as it limited the movement of the bridge to its sphere of mechanical influence.[45]

As mentioned earlier, we must leave aside our contemporary violin makers’ knowledge and certainties simply to understand that the early polyphonic bowed instruments such as the medieval fiddle, the vihuela, the lira da braccio or the lira da gamba were conceived to be played alone. And the monoxylous conception, without any internal structure and almost flat bridge was perfectly adapted to produce, around a polyphonic musical line, a rainbow of harmonic clouds.[46] When polyphonic effects are created by a consort of instruments of the same frame but built in different sizes and pitches, the role of each instrument becomes completely different, that is to say: monodic, and its conception has to be thought through again. Moroever, the fact of bringing instruments together clearly expresses the search for a greater volume, which is first obtained by a higher tension of the strings. We will probably never know if the soundpost was used a long time before the first mentions of the very end of the sixteenth century, but we have to accept that both its mechanical and acoustical effects perfectly answered the new instrumental requirements, as the consort practice really seems to expand only with the second half of this century.

Hypothesis 1: Andrea Amati, the “pins” and the central soundpost

Some few years ago, colleagues[47] drew my attention to an unexplained hole observable in every violin by Andrea Amati. This hole, of a variable size from about 1 mm to 2.5 mm, is situated in the inside part of the back, on its longitudinal axis, at the height of the upper part of the soundholes (figure 13). This hole, often filled up with glue is not cylindrical but slightly conical (figure 14). It is as deep as the thickness of the back and sometimes goes through the back to be visible from outside as in the later “Conte Vitale” violin (figure 15). We had many discussions together, trying to find some technical explanation for the presence of such a mysterious feature we called a “pin”, making various hypotheses but without arriving at really convincing solutions.

We have already referred to the unexpected discovery of original instruments, almost contemporary with Andrea Amati, in the burial chapel of Freiberg Cathedral. Most of these instruments have a central soundpost. In the “diskant geige” no. 4 (whose length of body is about 340 mm), a kind of small metallic nail is inserted in the lower part of the central soundpost and its point, going beyond the wood, is fitted in a hole of the same frame and situated at the same position as are the “pins” in the inner bottom plates of Andrea’s violins (figure 16).[48]

As we know, Andrea was the founder of a great dynasty of violin makers whose members were remarkably long-lived. His son Girolamo, brother of Antonio, died in 1630, aged 82 years. His own son Nicolò reached the age of 88 in 1684, and Girolamo II, son of Nicolò and exact contemporary of Stradivari died in 1737, aged 91 years.[49] We must believe that each member of the family had received a thorough instruction based on well-established constructional traditions, as the permanency of the same models and constructional techniques during a period of two centuries appears to attest.

Fig. 13 Violin by Andrea Amati	Fig. 14 Violin by Guiseppe Guarneri del Gesú (1687 to after 1742; private collection)
Fig. 15 “Conte Vitale” viola by Andrea Guarneri, 1676 (private collection)	Fig. 16 X-ray of the diskant geige no. 4 with a single soundpost of rectangular section (Freiberg Cathedral)

Between 1628 and 1632, plague succeeded by famine devastated northern Italy and the violin corporation was badly hit by the disaster. All the Brescian makers disappeared, but in the city of Cremona, a single member of the Amatis survived, sole heir of a great family tradition. To cope with the ensuing shortage of craftsmen, Nicolo would teach an unusual number of apprentices.[50] As a result, high quality skills and knowledge then spread out from a single source, which fact explains both the wide diffusion of the Amati models and the presence in most Italian violins of this long period of the same “pin” in their inner bottom plates.[51]

A few years later in Paris (1636), Marin Mersenne published his famous Harmonie Universelle. In this impressive treatise, we meet for the first time the clear mention of a movable soundpost in the viols (“un petit bâton que l’on relève par l’ouye quand il est tombé”), asymmetrically situated under the right foot of the bridge. From the Latin version of the same text, we can deduce that this soundpost was of a circular section, but nothing is said about the presence of any kind of bassbar.[52]

Hypothesis 2: Antonio Stradivari and the asymmetrical reinforcements

If, since the founder Andrea Amati, an old tradition of violin making had been transmitted without appreciable changes, things were clearly moving with another very famous violin maker of the Cremonese school: Antonio Stradivari. Compared with the previous permanence, the diversity of Stradivari’s output suggests a rather different frame of mind, revealing the spirit of innovation of a whole society where the musical seeds of the Renaissance finally blossom during the seventeenth century in a flowering of many extraordinary composers and musicians throughout Europe. With the development of the orchestra and the arrival of new musical forms, such as the concerto, instrumental requirements had radically changed. Now soloists were looking for a really powerful and clear monodic voice, with equal volume on a very extended compass.

Basing his work on the Amati models, Stradivari openly attempted to develop the acoustic potential of the violin. Moving away from the old medieval geometrical principles even respected by his colleagues, he first dared to use the metrologic system to modify empirically the shape of its body, surrendering partly the proportional canonical conception transmitted by his predecessors.[53] Looking from the outside, the observable alterations he experimented with on violins are well known. Beginning in 1692 by lengthening the resonating body, an approach he would quickly abandon, he would continue making it broader, while lowering the arching.

Considering the architectural conception from the inside, these new broader and lower plates are only made possible by the use of the definitive solution: the dissymetrical internal structure combining the different physical effects of each former axial reinforcement: the sound post and the lengthwise bar. Both ancient symmetrical systems are now brought together, so ingeniously and harmoniously arranged with the very singular mechanical properties of the vaults carved in quarter cut spruce. The bassbar, almost parallel to the grain of the belly, amplifies the lower frequencies while the soundpost from now onwards, behind the treble foot of the bridge, lends the highest notes a wonderful and powerful tone. This soundpost, being movable, allows each instrument to achieve its optimal balance.

Did Stradivari invent by himself an acoustical system so sophisticated and so efficient that we still use it today? Probably not, but its conception could only be the act of some highly experienced, discerning man of independent ideas, stimulated by innovative music and musicians. Hitherto, what looks to us like an early form of bassbar is attributed to Nicolò Amati who died in 1684.[54] Another one by Andrea Guarneri (d. 1698) is known to be in the the Vermillion collection.[55] But as they have been removed, we do not know for certain if they were situated behind the bass foot of the bridge or in the axis of the belly.

While the “pins” did not appear in Stradivari’s output, they are still observable in the violins of his neighbour and colleague Guarneri del Gesú (see figure 14 above). The new, and so efficient internal arrangement, would be progressively copied by the later violin makers, and these holes would gradually disappear, though probably more slowly than one might imagine. Pending further observations, we would point out an Italian violin of c. 1750 stamped GBG (probably Giovanni Battista Gabrielli, Florence) in the Vermillion collection, bearing the same hole in its back.[56] From 1725, the German baryton no. 228 of the Rosenbaum Family Collection has kept its original square section central soundpost fixed in place with two studs for stability.[57] The numerous high quality paintings of the eighteenth century seem to corroborate, through the still unstable position of the bridge, a slow generalisation of the new system (figure 17).[58]

Everyone knows the phenomenal prices reached by Italian violins since the nineteenth century. If the violins by Andrea Amati, like those by some who came after, had been conceived with thicker plates and central soundpost, how many of them might have stayed in their original state five hundred years later?

Hypothesis 3: Who was Andrea Amati?

Althought it might appear to go beyond our technical purpose, we would like to propose, by way of a conclusion, an interesting hypothesis about the origins of Andrea Amati. This idea came from a meeting, in 2005, with Ramón Pinto, violin maker from the famous Casa Paramón in Barcelona, who had encountered the mention of an Amat family, owning a tannery near Barcelona during the years 1490–1510. In a later discussion, we learned that his young neighbour on the next floor in Barcelona was called … Andrea Amat!

As no registration of baptisms by parish took place before the Council of Trent (1563), the date and place of birth of the founder of the great Cremonese School are not known, and Andrea’s first appearance in the historical records is found in a notarised deed dated 1539, a contract to rent premises for a period of five years.[59] Since the beginning of our research to track down information about Andrea’s origins, no antecedent, to our knowledge, of the name Amati has been found in the Italian Peninsula. The earliest mentions of this patronymic we have found were in Sardinia, in 1507–1508, when – following Jayme Amat, General Lieutenant of the Kingdom of Aragon, recently appointed as “Viceré Interinale” (Temporary Vice-roy) of the Island – a whole family named Amat settled in Alghero. In fact, the patronymic Amat is of Catalan origin, well documented since the eleventh century.

In 1078, the Council of Gerona, was presided over by a papal legate called Amat. In 1188, Ramón Amat is known to have accompanied King Don Alonsoduring the conquest of Saragossa, initiating the family tree of the “heroic dynasty ofthe illustrious Casa de Amat”. In 1282, Bernardo Amat caught the attention of King Don Pedro during the battle of Bordeaux. Later, in 1421, Ramón Amat was appointed as general adviser of the city of Barcelona, while his brother Francesco Amat was known to be a colonel.[60] Another Amat, Juan Carlos, originated from Monistrol de Montserrat, and had an important treatise Guitarra Española y vandola published in 1596.

In our introduction, we mentioned the enforcement in 1492 of the “blood cleanness” in Spain. An instructive study by Esteve Canyameres i Ramoneda[61] traces one of the numerous consequences of such a clause: “nobiliary falsifications”. Surprisingly, the precise case he describes in his article concerns two families Amat: one from Palou, the other from Sabadell, both villages situated in Catalonia. In 1497, Josep Amat was aspiring to be a canon in the Cathedral of Sevilla. Since, in order to be admitted for this office, he was unable to provide proof of his own “blood cleanness”, he was obliged to falsify some notary deeds to make it appear that he was amember of the other family of the same name.

In 1526, Cremona again came under new overlordship passing from the influence of the French to the German-Spanish domination of the Emperor Charles V. While the city was under siege, in order to recruit new soldiers, a list of men suitableto be enrolled was drawn up. Among the artisans’ names recorded we find mention of a “liuter” called Andrea.[62] The same document notes that Andrea was living near the cathedral in the house of Giovanni Leonardo Martinengo, son of a Jew from a family of wealthy merchants who had converted to Catholicism.