Bibliography and Notes

 

1) See PATRJZIO BARBIERI: "Giordano Riccati on the diameters of strings and pipes", The Galpin Society journal, XXXVIII 1985, pp. 20-34, and EPHRAIM SEGERMAN: “ STRINGS THROUGH THE AGES”, THE STRAD, PART 1, JANUARY 1988, PP. 52-5, PART 2 (“HIGHLY STRUNG”), MARCH 1988, PP. 195-201, PART 3 (“ DEEP TENSIONS”), APRIL 1988, PP. 295-9.

1) CARL FLESCH: “The art of violin playing”, 2 vols., Fischer, New York 1924-30 (original edition, Die Kunst des Violinspiels, 2 vols., Ries, Berlin 1924-8).

3) At various points of DAVID D. BOYDEN: The history of violin playing from its origins to 1761 and its relationship to the violin and violin musik, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1965, it is stated that string tensions on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century violins were lower than on their modern counterpart. Such statements, however, are not supported by any evidence, with the exception of certain constructional aspects of early instruments: for example, the generally shorter and thinner bass-bar, and the angle formed by the strings on the bridge, greater than that of today.

- On this subject, see also EDUARD MELKUS: Il violino: introduzione alia storia del violino e della tecnica violinistica, Giunti, Firenze 1975 (original edition Eine Einfuhrung in the Geschichte der Violine und des Violinspiels, Hallwag, Bern 1972), p. 27: "La dimensione del diametro [delle corde del violino] è nota solo dopo 1'inizio del XIX secolo" (the diameters [of violin strings] are known only after the beginning of the nineteenth century); and ROBIN STOWELL: Violin technique and performance practice in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Cambridge University Press, New York 1985, p. 28: "Some scholars believe, probably quite correctly, that eighteenth-century violin strings were generally thinner than their modern counterparts".

4) See in particular DJILDA ABBOT - EPHRAIM SEGERMAN: "Strings in the 16th and 17th centuries", The Galpin Society journal, XXVII 1974, pp. 48-73.

5) About the dating of the Egyptian strings, see WERNER BACHMANN: The origins of bowing and the development of bowed instruments up to the thirteenth century, Oxford University Press, London 1969 (original edition Die Anfange des Streichinstrumentenspiel, Breitkopf und Hartel, Leipzig 1964), p. 79.

6) STEPHEN BONTA: "From violone to violoncello: a question of strings?", Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, in 1977, pp. 64-99.

7) CHRISTOPHER PAGE: Voices and instruments of the Middle Ages: instrumental practice and song in France, 1100-1500, Dent, London 1987, pp. 234-5.

8) ABBOT - SEGERMAN: "Strings in the 16th and 17th centuries".

9) MIMMO PERUFFO: "The mystery of gut bass strings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the role of loaded-weighted gut", Recercare, v 1993, pp. 115-51. ABBOT - SEGERMAN: "Strings in the 16th and 17th centuries", on the other hand, claims that the all-gut basses of the time were made by interwining two or three gut strings by means of the technique commonly employed for making ropes.

10) SAMUEL HARTLIB: "Ephemerides", manuscript (location not known to the present author), under the year 1659; the passages cited were privately communicated by Robert Spencer (13 October 1995). Spencer suggested that the earliest information reached Hartlib from the well-known chemist Robert Boyle.

11) JOHN PLAYFORD: An introduction to the skill of music [...]. The fourth edition much enlarged, William Godbid for John Playford, London 1664; see also CLAUDE PERRAULT: Ceuvres de physique [...], Amsterdam 1727 (1st edition 1680) pp. 214-5: "Invention nouvelle pour augmenter le son des cordes".

12) JEAN ROUSSEAU: Traité de la viole [...], Christophe Ballard, Paris 1687.

13) PATRIZIO BARBIERI: "Cembalaro, organaro, chitarraro e fabbricatore di corde armoniche nella 'Polyanthea technica' di Pinaroli (1718-32): con notizie inedite sui liutai e cembalari operanti a Roma", Recercare, 1, 1989, pp. 123-209:198 (from a bill of the guitar maker Alberto Plainer: "due corde di violone, una di argento et un'altra semplice" [two violone strings, one of silver and another plain].

14) See the painting by Antonio Domenico Gabbiani Ritratto di musicisti alla corte medicea (Florence 1684-7), Firenze, Palazzo Pitti, inv. 1890, reproduced on the cover of Early Music, XVII/4 November 1990. According to SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, pp. 197-8, the use of overspun strings on the violin in Italy is first mentioned in GIORDANO RICCATTI. Delle corde, ovvero fibre elastiche, Stamperia di San Tommaso d'Aquino, Bologna 1767, p. 130; Segerman also assumes that stringings before mid century, including Tartini's, were all-gut, as in the seventeenth century.

15) JOHN DOWLAND: "Other necessary observations belonging to the lute", in ROBERT DOWLAND: Varietie of lute-lessons [...], Thomas Adams, London 1610, paragraph "Of setting the right sizes of strings upon the lute".

16) THOMAS MACE: Musik's monument [...], the author & John Carr, London 1676, pp. 65-6.

(17) ROBERT DONINGTON: "James Talbot's Manuscript, II: Bowed strings", The Galpin Society journal, III 1950, p. 30. According to SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, p. 197, Talbot also writes that "bass viol treble string = 2nd of violin"; on the strength of this scant data, Segerman estimated a diameter for a violin E in Talbot's day by referring to the average diameter of the chanterelle of a modern bass viol: as the diameter of a heavy modern top string for a bass viol is generally 0.69 mm, that of the Talbot's violin chanterelle was estimated as 0.46 mm.

18) for an iconographic example, see the painting by the Sienese artist Rutilio Manetti ‘Amore trionfante’ (1625), Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland.

19) MARIN MERSENNE: Harnomie universelle [...], Livre quatriesme, Cramoisy, Paris 1636, p. 189.

(20) In SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, p. 197, a diameter of about 0.76 mm is calculated.

21) BARBIERI: "Cembalaro, organaro, chitarraro e fabbricatore di corde armoniche", p. 74, workshop inventory of the instrument maker Crescenzio Ugar, 1791: "un ordegno da coprir corde di fil d’argento" (a device for covering strings with silver wire).

-FRANCESCO GALEAZZI: ‘Elementi teorico-pratici di musica con un saggio sopra l’arte di suonare il violino’, Pilucchi Cracas, Roma 1791, p.74: "Non sarà, cred'io, discaro al mio lettore, che io qui gli descriva una picciola semplicissima macchinetta, e 1'uso glie ne additi per filarsi, e ricoprirsi d'argento da sè i cordoni" (It will not, I believe,be unwelcome to my reader if Idescribe and explaine the use of, a small and very simple machine for threading and covering the fourth strings in silver).

22) FRANCESCO GRISELINI: Dizionario delle arti e mestieri, vol. V, Fenzo, Venezia 1769, entry "Cordajuolo di corde di budella", pp. 124~33 and plate XIII (a faithful translation of the entry "Bayaudier", in Encyclopedié, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers [...], vol. II, Briasson et al, Paris 1751, pp. 388-9), and FRANCOIS DE LALANDE: Voyage en Italie [...] fait dans les années 1765 et 1766, 2nd edition, vol. rx, Desaint, Paris 1786, pp. 514-9.

23) DE LALANDE: Voyage en Italie, p. 514.

24) The seventeenth century iconography shows that the length of excess string on an instrument was bundled up as if it were pliable cord: this strongly suggests that the strings were very soft. From the eighteenth century, strings were packaged in ring shapes, which would seem to confirm the changes in string making resulting from the introduction of overspun strings.

25) KLAUS OSSE: "Highly strung in Markneukirchen", The Strad, October 1993, pp. 964-7. Roma, Archivio di Stato, Camerale II Arti e mestieri, Statuti, coll. 312, busta 12, anno 1642, Statuto dell'univesità dei cordai di Roma.

26) VITTORIO VILLAVECCHIA: Dizionario di merceologia e di chimica applicata alla conoscenza delle materie prime e prodotti delle Industrie [...], 5th edition, vol. I, Hoepli, Milano 1955, pp. 768-9, under the entry "Carbonato di potassio" explains that it was once called oil of tartar.

-DOWLAND: Varietie of lute-lessons, recommends "oyl of tartar" to lutenists as a means of softening the skin of their hands.

27) PIERRE JAUBERT: Dictionnaire raisonné universel des arts et métiers, contenant I'histoire, la description, la police des fabriques et manufactures de France et des pays étranges [...], vol. I, Arnable Leroy, Lyon 1801 (1st edition Paris 1773), entry "Boyaudier", pp. 317-20: 319.

28) Both DE LALANDE: Voyage en Italie, p. 516, and GRISELINI: Dizionario delle arti e mestieri, vol. v, p. 130, indicate the number of turns to be given to the wheel (whose dimensions are given) in the twisting stage. In SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part i, pp. 52-3, it is estimated that the thicker the strings, the higher is the twist.

29) ABBOT - SEGERMAN: "Strings in the 16th and 17th centuries".

30) GRISELINI: Dizionario delle arti e mestieri, vol. v, p. 131.

31) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 71.

32) GRISELINI: Dizionario delle arti e mestieri, vol. v, p. 131.

33) ANTOINE-GERMAIN LABARRAQUE: "Minugiaio", paragraph "Corde musicali", Nuovo dizionario universale tecnologico di arti e mestieri e della economia industriale e commerciante, tomo VIII, Giuseppe Antonelli, Venezia 1823, pp. 373-6: 375.

34) Savaresse's authoritative opinion is reported in JEAN-CARL MAUGIN - WALTER MAIGNE: Nouveau manuel complet du luthier, 2nd edition, Roret, Paris 1869, p. 184.

35) AUGUSTO GANSSER: Manuale del conciatore, Hoepli, Milano 1949, p. 271: "Il procedimento di incorporare oli e grassi nella pelle in pelo o depilata per renderla durevole e in uso dai tempi più remoti" (The procedure of incorporating oils and fats in skins — whether covered with fur or depilated;— to make them more durable has been practised since earliest times); pp. 163-4: "Nei tempi antichi I'allume come anche il solfato d'allmina erano di largo uso per la concia bianca [...]. Gli egiziani fecero uso corrente dell'azione preservatrice dell'allume nella preparazione delle mummie {...]. L'allume ha un sapore astringente [...]. II pregio maggiore della concia all'allume sta nella grande elasticità che essa conferisce al cuoio" (In ancient times both alum and aluminum sulphate were widely used for white tanning [...]. The Egyptians made regular use of the preservative action of alum in the preparation of mummies [...]. Alum has an astringent taste [...]. The greater quality of alum-tanning lies in the great pliability it confers on leather).

36) For example, Roma, Archivio di Stato, Camerale //, Arti e mesrieri, Statuti, coll. 312, busta1 2, anno 1642, Statuto dell'università dei cordai di Roma.

37) Research carried out at the Chamber of Commerce of Padua has shown that the Romanin factory was managed by the Calegari family from 1849 until the firm was taken over by "Eredi Nicola Bella" of Giuseppe Drezza in Verona, at which point the production of strings ceased and the long and glorious tradition of Paduan string makers came to an end.

38) DE LALANDE: Voyage en Italie, p. 514.

39) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 71.

40) LOUIS SPOHR; Violinschule [...], Tobias Haslinger, Wien 1832, pp. 13-4.

41) "Que les deux derniéres petites cordes soient romaines, les cinque derniéres de Naples" (that the two small first strings should be Romans, the last five from Naples): Forqueray’s letter (late 1767-early 1768) to Prince Wilhelm on bass viol stringings, cited in YVES GÉRARD: "Notes sur la fabrication de la viole de gambe et la manière d'en jouer, d'après une correspondance inédite de J. B. Forqueray au prince Frédéric Guillaume de Prusse", Recherches sur la musique franfais classique, n 1961-1, lettre 7 "A son altesse royale monseigneur le prince de Prusse". The letter shows the French musician's preference for Neapolitan and Roman strings.

42) ANTOINE GERMAIN LABARRAQUE: L'art du boyaudier, Imprimerie de Madame Huzard, Paris 1812, pp. 31-2.

43) GEORGE HART: The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, Dulau and Co., London 1875, section 3: "Italian and other strings", pp. 46-7.

44) LUIGI FORINO: II violoncello, il violoncellista ed i violoncellisti, Hoepli, Torino 1905, pp. 54-5.

45) ARTHUR BROADLEY: "String gauges", The Strad, April 1900, p. 371: "At the present time the matter of string thickness seems to rest entirely with the makers, the player has practically to take what is given to him".

46) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, pp. 71-2.

47) LABARRAQUE: L'art du boyaudier, p. 131.

48) SPOHR: Violinschule, p. 14.

49) MAUGIN - MAIGNE: Nouveau manuel complet du lathier, pp. 183-4.

50) HART: The violin, pp. 49-50.

51) FORINO: II violoncello, il violoncellista ed i violoncellisti, pp. 55-6.

52) "Que la quatrième [corde] qui est ut soil demi filée avec du fil tres fin" (that the fourth [string] which is a ‘C’ should be half-wound with. a very thin wire): Forqueray's letter to Prince Wilhelm, cited in GÉRARD: "Notes sur la fabrication de la viole de gambe".

53) The final years of the seventeenth century in fact saw a period of transition between the use of pure gut-basses and that of overspun strings. In around 1670 the Bergamasque painter Evaristo Baschenis (1617-1677) represented his instruments strung with all plain gut, while in the violin of the painting by Gabbiani (Ritratto di musicisti alla corte medicea, 1684-7; see footnote 14 above) we distinctly perceive what is presumably an overspun G-string. On the threshold of the eighteenth century, the violin of the Englishman Talbot still employed the typical bass strings of the seventeenth century. Both ABBOTT - SEGERMAN: "Strings in the 16th and 17th centuries", and BOYDEN: The history of violin playing, cite the following German sources that indicated the use — on the violin — of an overspun fourth string only: JOSEPH FRIEDRICH BERNHARD CASPAR MAJER: Museum musicum theoretico practicum [...], Schwäb. Hall - Georg Michael Majer, Nürnberg 1732, p. 75; JOHANN JOACHIM QUANTZ: Versuch einer Enweisung, die Flöte traversiere zu spielen [...], Johann Friedrich Voss, Berlin 1752, chapter xviii, section 2, paragraph 28; and GEORG SIMON LÖHLEIN: Anweisung zum Violinspielen [...], Waisenhaus- und Frommannische Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1774, p. 9.'Abbott and Segerman conjecture that the stringing indicated by LEOPOLD MOZART: Versuch eine gründlichen Violinscule [...], Verlag des Verfasser, Augsburg 1756, p.6, was completely of gut, as in the previous century. The basis of this belief is Mozart's assertion that the strings should become larger towards the bass. According to the authors, that would rule out the use of an overspun G-string because — according to the system of equal tension between the strings recommended by Mozart — it would have to be thinner than the D. In our opinion, Mozart, who we know that he was in constantly referred to the Italian tradition, used surely an overspun fourth string like other the German/Austrian violinists. A possible clue is the famous portrait of the musician (and his family) dating to 1780 by the painter Johann Nepomuk della Croce (Salzburg, Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum): if we examine the instrument held vertically on the keyboard instrument plucked by his son, we clearly distinguish the colour of the fourth string (white) from that of the others in dark-yellow.

54) SEBASTIEN DE BROSSARD: [Fragments d'une méthode de violon], manuscript, ca. 1712, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Rés. Vm8 c.i, fol. 12r (cited in BARBIERI: "Giordano Riccati", p. 34). JEAN-BENJAMIN DE LABORDE: Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne, Eugène Onfroy, Paris 1780, livre second, "Des instruments", pp. 358-9: "Violon [...] Ordinairement la troisième et la quatrième sont filées; quelque fois la troisième ne l’est pas" (Violon [...] Normally the third and fourth are overwrapped; sometimes the third isn't). As we observed, it is by no means certain that the third string indicated by Laborde is of the demi-filé type (see ABBOT - SEGERMAN: "Strings in the 16th and 17th centuries"), though admittedly this is the most likely possibility.

55) SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", p. 54, citing FLESCH: The art of violin playing.

56) JAQUES SAVARY DES BRUSLONS: Dictionnaire universel de commerce, d'histoire naturelle, et des arts et métiers, vol.II, Cl. & Ant. Philibert, Copenhagen 1759, entry "Corde", p. 248: "ensorte que celles du N° 1, ne sont faites que d'un seul filet; celles du N.° 2, de deux filets, celles du N.° 3, de trois filets; & ainsi des autres cordes" (in such a way that those of N°1 are made of just one strand alone, those of N° 2 of two strands, those of N° 3 of three strands; and so on for the other strings).

57) EDWARD HERON-ALLEN: Violin-making as it was and is [...], Ward, Lock & Co., London 1884, p. 212: "When dry they are polished, an operation which first or E strings are frequently allowed to go without".

58) According to SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, p. 197, our earliest information dates to Stradivari: the gauge of the (presumed) fourth string of the violin in Stradivari's time is calculated exclusively from the breadth of the pencil (or charcoal) mark found on the cardboard mould of the "citara tiorbata" in Cremona, Museo Stradivariano: 2.9 mm. (!) We feel that assessments of this kind are completely untrustworthy.

59) UBERTO ANDREA: L'antico abitato di Salle, vol. I, Tipografia dell'Abbazia, Casamari, n.d., p. 77: "Tra i cordari che lavoravano spessissimo fuori paese o vi tenevano negozio, si distinguevano Carlo Antonio Ruffini, Domenico Antonio De Dorninicis, Domenico Antonio Angelucci e Giosafatte Di Rocco" (Among the string makers who very often worked outside the town or had a shop there, those who stood out were Carlo Antonio Ruffini, Domenico Antonio De Dorninicis, Domenico Antonio Angelucci and Giosafatte Di Rocco). From the document Chieti, Archivio di Stato, Regia Udienza di Chieti, n. 77, Catasto di Salle del 1746, it would appear that the Angelucci, though working in Naples, were from the Abruzzi.

60) PATRIZIO BARBIERI: Acustica, accordatura e temperamento nett'ltuminismo veneto: con scritti inediti di Aiessandro Barca, Giordano Riccati e altri autori, Istituto di Paleografia Musicale — Torre d'Orfeo, Roma 1987, pi 42, considers that the last violin string indicated by De Lalande (seven guts) corresponds to the fourth string. However, as far we can tell, the fourth string was overspun in the Italian tradition of the XVIII century. As the gut core of the G corresponded in Italy to a rather light second string (Galeazzi), by working out the proportions between the number of combined guts and the diameter obtainable (as we shall see below), we arrive exacty at the caliber proportion indicated by RICCATI: Delle corde, p. 130, for the first; and third strings, and certainly not for the first and a thin second string, understood as the core of the fourth.

61) Libro contenente la maniera di cucinare e vari segreti e rimedi per malattie et altro, manuscript, Reggio Emilia, Biblioteca Municipale Panizzi, Mss, vari E 177: "Corde da violino, modo di farle. Si prendino le budella di castrato o di capra fresche [...] volendo fare cantini se ne prende tre fila e si torgono al mulinello" (Violin strings, ways of making them. Take the fresh guts of castrato or goat [...] to make chanterelles, take three strands and twist them at the wheel).

62) EDWARD NEILL: Nicolò Paganini: Registro di lettere, 1829, Graphos, Geneva 1991, p. 80, letter from Breslau, 31 July 1829, addressed to "signre profre (di violino) Onorio de Vito, Napoli": "Ho bisogno di un favore: ponetevi tutta la cura, e la diligenza. Mi mancano i cantini [...]. Quantunque tanto sottili devono essere di 4 fila per resistere. Badate che la corda sia liscia, uguale, e ben tirata [...]. Vi supplico di sorvegliare i fabricanti e di far presto, e bene." (I need a favour: to be done with care and solicitude. I am without chanterelles [...]. Even if they are very thin they must be made of four strands to endure. Make sure the string is smooth, even and well stretched [...] I beg you to keep an eye on the makers and do this soon and well). It would, appear, therefore, that Paganini had his own strings made according to precise instructions. In a letter written shortly before (Naples, 29 May 1829) we read: "II tuo Paganini [...] desidera sapere quanti mazzi di cantini e quanti di seconde e a quante fila si desiderano da Napoli. Perchè ora si awicina il mese di agosto, epoca giusta per fabbricar le corde" (Your friend Paganini [...] wants to know how many bunches of chanterelles and how many of second strings and with how strands are wanted from Naples. Because the month of August is approaching: the right time for making strings): EDWARD NEIL: Paganini: Epistolario, Comune di Genova, Genova 1982, p. 49. SPOHR: Violinschule, p. 14: "Unter den Quinten (E-Saiten) giebt es drei- und vier-drähtige; d.h. solche, die aus drei und andere, die aus vier Gedärmen zusammengedreht sind. Letztere sind theurer und werden von manchen Geigern auch höher geschätzt, die Erfahrung lehrt aber, dass unter den vier drähtigen Quinten vid seltener reine Züge zu finden sind und dass sie früher faserig und unbrauchbar werden" (Among the chanterelles — the E strings — there are some of three, others of four strands, that is, those made up of three or four guts twisted together. The latter are more expensive and also more highly prized by violinists, but experience tells us that among the chanterelles with four strands it is more difficult to find ones that are true and that they become frayed and unusable more rapidly). FLESCH: The art of violin playing, include the following anecdote on the presumed measurements of certain strings ordered by Nicolò Paganini: "Some thirty years ago the owner of the firm of Schort showed the celebrated violinist Hugo Heermann one of Paganini's letters, wherein the latter begged the head of the firm of his day to procure strings for him like the samples enclosed. Heermann obtained the loan of these strings, measured them on a string-gauge, and found to his astonishment that the D-string had the strength of the A-string used today, and the A-string the thickness of out E-string, and that the latter was not unlike a strong thread"; quoted in SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, p. 201. Segerman adds the conjecture that in all likelihood these were strings for the guitar, an instrument on which Paganini was proficient.

63) MAUGIN - MAIGNE: Nouveau manuel complet du luthier, p. 182.

64) PHILIPPE SAVARESSE: "Cordes pour tous les instruments de musique", in CHARLES-P.-L. LABOULAYE: Dictionnaire des arts et manufactures, 3rd edition, vol. I, Lacroix, Paris 1865.

65) DOMENICO ANGELONI: Il liutaio: origine e costruzione del violino e degti strumenti ad arco moderni [...], Hoepli, Milano 1923, pp. 279-98.

66) RICCATI: Delle corde, p. 130.

67) ALBERT CHOEN: "A cache of 18th century strings", The Galpin Society journal, XXXVI 1983, pp. 37-48:41.

68) The fragment of the E string was given to the author by the cellist and viol player Christophe Coin, who expressed this opinion.

69) WILLIAM HUGGINS: "On the function of the sound-post and the proportional thickness of the strings on the violin", Royal Society proceeding, XXXV 1883, pp. 241-8: 247.

70) SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 1, p. 199.

71) HERON-ALLEN: Violin making, p. 209.

72) HUGGINS: "On the function of the sound-post", p. 247.

73) ANDREA: L'antico abitato di Salle, p. in: "L'unico capital d'industria in questa terra si è quello del lavoro delle corde armoniche, le quali sono portate all'ultimo grado di perfezione, in guisa che per ogni dove portansi questi naturali per travagliar su d'esse, ed in Napoli, ed in Roma, pel Fiorentino e perfino in Francia" (The only industrial capital of this area is that of making musical strings, which are brought to the utmost perfection; in fact, the natives of this area go all over the place to make them, to Naples and to Rome, to the Florentine area and even to France). In SAVARESSE: "Cordes", we read: "La fabrication des cordes d'instruments n'est pas très ancienne en France, elle fut introduite par un ouvrier napolitain, Nicolas Savaresse, qui monta une fabrique à Lyon vers l’an 1766" (The making of instrument strings is not very old in France; it was introduced by a Neapolitan artisan, Nicoias Savaresse, who set up a workshop in Lyon in around the year 1766). In turn LUIGI FRANCESCO VALDRIGHI: Nomocheliurgografia antica e modema, ossia Elenco di fabbricatori di strumenti armonici con note esplicative e documenti estratti dall'Archivio di Stato in Modena, Societa Tipografica, Modena 1884, pp. 112-3, writes: "la fabbricazione delle corde armoniche di minugia [...] fu da paesotti di Salle, Musellaro e Bolognano introdotta in Roma e Napoli".(the making of gut musical strings [...] was introduced to Rome and Naples from the villages of Salle, Musellaro and Bolognano).

74) SEGERMAN: "Strings thorough the ages", part 2, p. 201. For Heron-Allen and Bishopp, Segerman assumed a pitch standard of A = 452 Hz. For Hart we have assumed a pitch standard of A = 435 Hz and a vibrating length of 33 cm.

75) The assumption is based on SAVARESSE: "Cordes": "La chanterelle ayant trois fils, si les autres cordes sont faites avec les mêmes intestins, la seconde aura 5 ou 6 fils et la troisième 8 et 9, et par conséquent la seconde devra avoir deux fois la force de la chanterelle et la troisième trois fois, force qui devient superflue puisque la tension ne 1'exige pas" (With a chanterelle of three strands, if the other strings are made with the same gut, the second will have five or six strands, the third eight or nine; hence the second will have twice the strength of the chanterelle and the third three times — a strength that is superfluous in so far as it is not required by the tension).

76) Assuming that a string of three strands has an average diameter of 0.70 mm, we observe that the theoretical diameter diminishes to only 0.57 mm with two threads of the same gut and increases to 0.81 with four (in practice, a very light second string). In conditions of theoretical calculation, the ratio between the diameters will be equal to the square root of the ratio between the numbers of threads used. One can assume, however, that the different number of guts used to make the second and third strings depends on the different thicknesses of the raw material, so in fact the variations in diameter were unlikely to have been considerable; as a result, the range of diameters calculated here should probably be considered as excessive.

77) According to SEBASTIEN-ANDRE’ SIBIRE: La chélonomie, ou Le parfait luthier, Sibire & Millet, Paris 1806, pp. 112-3 (reported in BARBIERI: "Giordano Riccati", p. 29), the diameters would fall into the following intervals: E = 0.70-0.73 mm; A = 0.98-1.03 mm; D = 1.38-1.45 mm (vibrating length 33 cm; pitch standard A = 415-435 Hz). Another clue is indirectly provided in GIOVANNI FOUCHETTI: Méthode pour apprendre facilement à jouer de la mandoline a 4 et a 6 cordes [...], n.p., Paris (ca. 1770] (quoted from EPHRAIM SEGERMAN: "Neapolitan mandolins, wire strengths and violin stringing in late 18th c. France", FOMRHI quarterly, no. 43, April 1986, communication 713, pp. 99-100): here we read that the second brass course is a gauge 5 harpsichord string. The gauge scale generally used at the time in France was that of Cryseul. On the basis of this fact, Segerman derived a diameter of 0.34 mm. As the mandolin has the same vibrating length as the violin, the first string, of gut, must have had a diameter of 0.57 mm (according to a system considered by Segerman to be in equal tension). DE LALANDE: Voyage en Italie, p. 516, states that the first string of the mandolin took two gut-ribbons and thus, in proportion, using equal types of gut, we obtain a gauge of 0.70 mm for one made of three strands. A further French source is that of the physicist CHARLES-EDOUARD-JOSEPH DELEZENNE: Experiences et observations sur les conies des instruments à archet, L. Danel, Lille 1853 (cited in BARBIERI: Acustica, accordatura e temperamento nell’'illuminismo veneto, p.48). As Barbieri reports, Delezenne formulates a hypothesis of equal tension but then examines "ten different assortments of strings of commercial violin strings provided for him by the luthier Lapaix, finding instead average ratios [between the strings] noticeably lower than 1.5 [which was equal tension]": the range of commercial gauges measured by Delezenne was as follows: E = 0.61-0.70; A = 0.82-0.96 mm; and D = 1.01-1.39 mm.

78) FRANCOIS-JOSEPH FETIS: Antoine Stradivari luthier celèbre connu sous le nom de Stradivarivs [...], Vuillaume, Paris 1856, p. 92: on the basis of data supplied by the celebrated French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, it is reported that twenty years earlier a violin chanterelle took 22 of the then French pounds (ca. 11 kg) of tension, the other strings a little less; the total was 80 pounds (cited in BARBIERI: "Giordano Riccati", p. 29). For the Italian situation, see CARLO GERVASONI: La scuola della musica [...], Niccolò Orcesi, Piacenza 1800, vol. I, p. 126, footnote a: "Non in tutte le citta il tono volgarmente detto corista si trova uguale, ma bensì nell'une si riconosce questo piu alto o più basso che nell'altre. II corista di Roma e di fatto molto più basso di quello di Milano, Pavia, Parma, Piacenza e di tutte 1'altre citta della Lombardia: ed il corista di Parigi poi non solo cresce oltre il corista romano, ma molto ancora oltre il lombardo. Un corista di mezzo, e piu generalmente abbracciato, gli è pertanto quello della Lombardia: ed a questo infatti, poco piu poco meno, s'accostano i coristi di varie provincie" (Not in all cities is the pitch commonly called the corista the same, for in some it is acknowledged to be higher or lower than in others. The corista of Rome is in fact much lower than that of Milan, Pavia, Parma, Piacenza and all the other Lombard cities. And the corista of Paris is sharper not only than the Roman one, but also much higher that of Lombardy, and it is to this [Lombard pitch] that, one way or the other, the coristi of various provinces approximate).

79) HART: The violin, p. 51, for example, writes that: "Vast improvements have been effected in the stringings of violins within the last thirty years. Strings of immense size were used alike on violins, violoncellos, tenors and double basses. Robert Lindley, the king of English violoncellists, used a string for his first very nearly equal in size to the second of the present time".

80) SPOHR: Viotinschule, plate 1, figure IV. SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, p. 198.

81) SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, pp. 198 and 201. As yet we have no means of comparing the numbering indicated on Spohr's string-gauge with that used today, for the unit of length is still unknown. If the gauge were of Italian provenance, research would then be needed among the numerous units of length used in the coundess states making up early nineteenth-century Italy. The current decimal system, it is worth remembering, came into force in Italy only in 1861.

82) Dowland: ‘Other necessary observations’.

83) Wellesley (Mass.), Wellesley College Library, "The Burwell lute tutor", manuscript, ca. 1670, facsimile reprint with introduction by Robert Spencer, Boethius Press, Leeds 1973, chapter 4 "Of the strings of the lute [...]".

84) MACE: Musik's monument, chapter vi, p. 65.

(85) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 72.

86) DANIELLO BARTOLI: Del suono, de' tremori armonici e dell'udito, a spese di Nicolò Angelo Tinassi, Roma 1679, p. 157. Copy consulted: private library of Roberto Regazzi, Bologna.

87) JOSEPH-ANTONIE PLAISSARD: "Des cordes du violon", Association fracaise pour I'avancement des sciences. Congres del Lille, 1874 (cited in BARBIERI: Acustica, accordatura e temperamento, p. 46.

88) Segerman: “Modern lute stringing and beliefs about gut”, Fomrhi Quarterly, bull 98, January 2000, p.59.

(89) SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 1, p. 55, writes: "A more real advantage of equal-tension stringing is that the 'feel' of each string is the same in the sense that the same force at the same relative position on the string pushes aside (or depresses) each string the same amount".

- In STEPHEN BONTA: "Further thoughts on the history of strings", The Catgut Acoustical Society newsletter, no. 16, 1 November 1976, p. 22, referring to Thomas Mace's suggestions about the equal feel under the fingers on the lute, writes: "it seems clear that tensions [understood by Bonta as equal kilos] between top and bottom strings on these instruments cannot have been too disparate for the very same reasons".

90) LEOPOLD MOZART: Versuch einer griindlichen Violinschule, p. 6; SERAFINO DI COLCO: Lettera. prima (Venezia, 7 gennaro 1690), in Le vegghie di Minerva nella Accademia de Filareti: per il mese di gennaro 1690, Venezia 1690, pp. 32-3. SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 1, pp. 54-5. Like Segennan, BARBIERI: Acustica, accordatura e temperamento, pp. 47-8, sees a perfect analogy between the tension expressed in kilos, according to modern practice, and the concept of "tension" as expressed for example by Galeazzi (which is in fact a tactile sense).

91) WILLIAM HUGGINS: "On the function of the sound-post and the proportional thickness of the strings on the violin", Royal Society proceeding, xxxv 1883, pp. 241-8: 248: ‘ The explanation of this departure of sizes of the strings which long experience has shown to be pratically most suitable, from the values they should have from theory, lies probably in the circumstance that the height of the bridge is different for the different strings. It is obvious, where the bridge is high, there is a greater downward pressure. There is also the circumstance that the string which go over a high part of the bridge stand farther from the finger-board, and have therefore to be pressed thorough a greater distance, would require more force than is required for the other strings, if the tension were not less.’.

92) Cited in BARBIERI: Acustica, accordatura e temperamento, p. 41.

93) MAUGIN - MAIGNE: Nouveau manuel complet du luthier, pp. 168,181-3 (the section on strings was added to the 1869 edition of the manual).

94) On the pitch standard, see ANGELONI: // liutaio, p. 281: "nel 1859 il governo francese stabili the il corista normale dovesse corrispondere al la" di 435 vibrazioni doppie" (in 1859 the French government established that the normal pitch standard should correspond to an A of 435 double vibrations).

95) ABBOT - SEGERMAN: "Strings in the 16th and 17th centuries".

96) FETIS: Antoine Stradivari, p. 92, quoted from BARBIERI: "Giordano Riccati", p. 29.

97) For Savart see SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, p. 198. For Fetis see BARBIERI: "Giordano Riccati", p. 29. If the tension of all the strings were equal, it remains to be explained why it was necessary to indicate that the first takes 20 pounds and the rest up to 80 pounds.

98) HUGGINS: "On the function of the sound-post", p. 248: "By means of a mechanical contrivance I found the weights necessary to deflect the strings to the same amount when the violin was in tune. The results agreed with the tensions which the sizes of the strings [i.e. corresponding to Ruffini's gauges] showed they would require to give fifths".

99) HART: The violin, p. 54; for Bishopp (1884) and Heron-Alien (1885) see SEGERMAN: "Strings through the ages", part 2, p. 201.

100) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 75 footnote a.

101) See, for example, WILLIAM NICHOLSON: A dictionary of chemistry [...], 2 vols., G. G. and J. Robinson, London 1795, vol. n, pp. 820-4.

102) SPOHR: Violinschule, pp. 12-3. Paganini himself preferred silver to all other metals: "mi restituirò a Milano per li tuoi violini e ti farò fasciare delle quarte di filo d'argento" (I will return to Milan for your violins and will get you to wrap the fourth strings with silver wire): NEIL: Paganini: Epistolario, p. 67.

103) HART: The violin, p. 52.

104) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 75 footnote b.

105) MAUGIN -MAIGNE: Nouveau manuel complet du luthier, p. 168.

106) JOSEPH-ANTONIE PLAISSARD: "Des cordes du violon", Association fracaise pour I'avancement des sciences. Congres del Lille, 1874 (cited in BARBIERI: Acustica, accordatura e temperamento, p. 46), writes that the French luthiers of his day used E strings (0.63-0.73 mm) overwrapped with silver-plated copper of gauge 16, that is 0.13-0.14 mm.

107) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 74 footnote a.

108) GALEAZZi: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 74.

109) HERON-ALLEN: Violin making, p. 213.

110) GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 75.

111) FRIEDRICH DOTZAUER: Methode de violoncelle, Richault, Paris (n.d.), Supplement, p. 48.

112) HERON-ALLEN: Violin making, p. 213: "I always obtain my covered strings for violin or viola from Mr. G. Hart, who covers them with alternate spirals of gun-metal and plated copper. The best (recommended by Herr Strauss) are wrapped over close to the knot with red silk".

113) The smoothed overwrapped strings are named in FORINO: // violoncello, il violoncellista ed i violoncellisti, p. 60

114) DJILDA ABBOTT - EPHRAIM SEGERMAN: "Overspun string calculations", FOMRHI quarterly, no. 13, October 1978, communication 163, pp. 50-2. The formula we obtained was the following:

ز mm equiv gut. - ز mm gut core

Ø filo (in mm.) = ----------------------------------------------

K x Ø mm gut core

where K = 15,25 for silver and 21,53 for copper and silver-plated copper

115) On pitch standards, see EPHRAIM SEGERMANN: "On German, Italian and French pitch standards in the lyth and 18th centuries", FOMRHI quarterly, no. 30, January 1982, communication 442, and ARTHUR MENDEL: "Pitch in western music since 1500: a re-examination", Acta musicologtca, L 1978, pp. 1-93.

116) On the position of the bridge in the seventeenth century, much iconographic evidence documents that it was very frequendy placed close to, if not actually at the bottom of, the sound hole. On this subject, the luthier Drmitry Badiarov of Brussels has collected over a hundred illustrations relating to the violin, at least seventy per cent of which show a position of the bridge different from diat considered "standard" today — i.e. at the centre of the sound hole — in favour of one closer to the tailpiece. Still in the eighteenth century, modifications to the violin's tone were accomplished by adjusting the positions of both soundpost and bridge. GALEAZZI: Elementi teorico-pratici di musica, p. 71: "potrà 1'ozioso suonatore, combinando le posizioni dell’anima; e del ponticello, far che risulti una qualità di voce di suo genio" (the player who has the leisure may arrange the positions of the soundpost and the bridge in such a way as to create a tone quality to his own taste). ANTONIO BAGATELLA: Regole per la costruzione de' violini, viole, violoncelli e violoni, R. Accademia di Lettere Scienze ed Arti di Padova, Padova 1786, p. 27: "Il ponticello similmente sì per la sua costruzione, come per la sua posizione più avanti, o più indietro può generare somma alterazione; e perciò il maneggio dell'anima e del ponticello esige una gran pratica e diligenza essendochè dall'una e dall’altro non posti a dovere, un buon violino può comparire cattivo" (Similarly the bridge, both in its construction and by its position (either one way or the other), can make a considerable difference; hence the handling of the soundpost and the bridge requires great skill and diligence, seeing that if one or other is not placed in the right position a good violin can seem bad).

117) (Footnotes 118-12 are the original notes to Cionini's text.) Zibini o Cibini o Cibeni, famiglia detta dei Romei di Trento (Zibini or Cibini or Cibeni, a family of Trento known as de' Romei).

118) “Da una loro supplica del 1799 apprendo che versavano nella più squallida miseria e che erano inferme” (From a petition of theirs of 1799,1 learn that they lived in the utmost penury and were infirm).

119) Archivio di Stato di Modena, Musica, filza 3a.

120) II Valdrighi in altra parte della sua opera fa cononoscere che "le sorelle Zibini dal 1726 al 1803 ebbero I'appalto delle corde da suono in Modena. In questo loro diritto privativo pare succeddessero gli eredi di Beniamino Vito-Levi, dirito abolito con legge del 5 pratile, anno VI repubblicano: altra industria la decadenza ddla quale si deve alla rivoluzione importataci dalla Francia" (Valdrighi in another part of his work mentions that the "Zibini sisters from 1726 to 1803 had the contract for corde da suono in Modena. This monopolistic right was inherited, it would appear, by the heirs of Beniamino Vito-Levi, and the right itself was abolished by law dated 5 Pratile, in the 6th Year of the Republican Calendar yet another industry whose decline can be attribitued to the revolution imported from France").

121) Apprendo che nel 3 agosto del 1743 gli eredi Zibini, livellari del gius privativo delle corde armoniche in Modena, in Reggio e nelle adiacenze, ricorsero al Duca, per richiamare al dovere i macellai che avevano ricusato di dare le minugie di castrato pel prezzo con cui si pagavano in Modena ai detti eredi, che, gtusta la grida, avevano mandato a Sassuolo a far incetta di dette minugie (Learning that on the 3rd August of 1743 the Zibini heirs, holders of the musical string monopoly in Modena, Reggio and the vicinity, appealed to the Duke to bring to order the butchers who had refused give the gut of castrate for the price at which they were paid in Modena to the said heirs, who, in just cause, had sent to Sassuolo to buy up the said guts).

I would like to thank Terrell Stone and Hugh Ward-Perkins for their help on the English translation of this paper.