Making Traditions

Cremona Revival Table of Contents Page //

Historical Making and Preliminary Topics
        1) --- Measurements & Proportions
        2) --- Instrument Shapes: Origins and Evolving Geometry
        3) --- Arts & Materia
        4) --- Making Traditions

 

Topic IV --- Making Traditions
Exploring Both the Traditions of Historical String Instrument Making
And the Development and Origins of Those Traditions

Intro:

Call them ‘traditions’, or ‘rules’, ‘guides’, ‘principles’, etc.  Choose as you will.  However named, we can observe that certain ideas or methods are much repeated and favored in historical instrument making.  

We will explore the origins, usage, and trends in such ‘traditions’ as observed in historical European string instrument making.  The topic is vast.  Much of it we will only loosely sketch.  But, we’ll also sample a few details in greater depth to help create a clearer picture of the whole.  We will need to shift from micro to macro views, and also shift in many other ways.

Our general topic is European string instrument making, but we will often zoom in on Northern Italy and the towns of Brescia, Venice, and especially Cremona. Similarly, we will focus on the lines of development that led to the violin family.

In most cases, we lack any writings from directly inside the instrument making traditions. So, we are primarily talking about whatever we can actually observe – patterns and working preferences that we can actually see in existing examples and iconography.

What we can observe covers a wide range. 

Some observable patterns might see almost too broad and obvious to note.  Others items might seem excessively detailed and fine grain.  Nevertheless, when we see some detail or method used repeatedly across time, or within a particular group of makers, or type of instrument, we will call these repeated work patterns ‘tradition’. 

Some of these traditions will be things that run broadly across centuries and many instrument types, ideas that shape general development and long term trends.  Others will by fine details that merely help distinguish stylistic differences between one group of makers and anothe

To give an example, we can note that very broadly string instrument makers tend to arrange soundholes basically symmetrically along the center line of an instrument.  This is evident in countless historical examples, but perhaps doesn’t even seem worth mention.  Yet, it is a tradition of European instrument making.  It is something that is not an automatic given, yet instrument makers across centuries almost always chose to adhere to this principle in virtually every type of instrument.

At the other extreme, some patterns of preferred choices are exceedingly fine grained, detailed, or localized in scope. 

In the following example, we will look at a ‘work pattern’ that affects only a small difference in soundhole style. This work pattern amounts to a small detail of proportion and placement of a single arc from the dividers, yet it is one of the main elements distinguishing t he older Amati style versus the newer Stradivari style of soundholes.

The actual geometry recipe in the two styles is the same.  But, the size and placement of this one arc changes the look and style of the soundhole’s lower wings. On the older Amati styled soundholes, if we extend the wing arcs (shown in blue) , the arcs will stay within or just meet a line showing the lower boundary of the soundholes (the green line in the illustrations).   But, with the Stradivari style, these wing arcs will boldly cut past that line. It’s a small point, but it sets a different character in each style.

These are but two examples from a vast number of work patterns or ‘traditions’.  

We will not aim here to exhaustively explore all such patterns or rules.  Instead, we will aim to get a fair understanding of how such traditions arose historically, and how they functioned practically in making and developing instruments.

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Some Basics of Shape Making

 To open our explorations, let’s consider broadly how general shapes and sizes are established in instrument making.

The instrument maker is and was of course an artisan. The most obvious way shapes have always been made is simply by eye and hand, so called ‘freehand’ work.  The alternatives all involve some sort of mechanical assist, like a ruler or other drawing tool.

Some things naturally could only be done freehand.  This includes such things as sculpting a face or figure. Yet, even with great artist sculptors like Michelangelo we know that drawing tools were often mixed with freehand work to create various reference points and ratios within otherwise free work. 

Many shapes the instrument maker uses can be created fully with tools and geometry.  The central tools for this sort of work are the dividers and straight edge, or equally compass and rule.  Many other tools can be added to this, including various linkages and assorted drawing guides using string and pins.  But one of the more important additional tools is the bent spline. This is the ancient way to create a smooth curve that runs through an arbitrary collection of preset points.  Such a ‘spline’ is simply made of some appropriately bendable material, like a flexible wire or a thin slat of wood.

Historical instrument making could and did mix the various possible tools. However, different communities of makers favored different blends of resources in their work.

Instrument heads provide diverse examples showing the full range from masterful freehand sculpture, to highly geometric volutes, to rather crude freehand imitations of volute geometry.

While the possible ways one could create instrument shapes is perhaps endless, one of the thing that distinguishes old Cremona makers is their clear preference to rely on the geometry of dividers and simple ratios. Integral to this is their tendency to extremely minimize any aspects of free shape carving, choosing instead to make a maximize use of methods relying on repeatable recipes of proportions and geometry. 

Makers all through Italy, including Brescia and Venice, also show extensive use of geometry and proportions to create shapes and generally guide making.   But, in the case of old Cremona making, we can observe a more complete and thorough reliance on such patterns and habits of geometry and proportion behind virtually every aspect of every feature.

We see this reliance on geometry even in the 3D sculptural elements of Cremona making, such as the plate archings and the scroll work.  In these, traditional geometry recipes give outlines and select cross sections of shapes.   Smoothly joining between such 2D shapes can govern full 3D results.

Such ideas can find good use in boatbuilding and roof design, as well as instrument arching. The ‘bent spline’ idea of smoothness gave the common historical method for controlling more complicated 3D surfaces with 2D geometry outlines and cross sections.  .

Old Cremona violin scrolls for example, have outline shapes that are well determined by traditional recipes of geometry. But, the scroll is then given further 3D sculptural interest with ‘smooth’ fluting and in setting of the shape.

For the historical boat builder, a 3D hull shape could be completed from a combination of geometrically determining select points and cross sections of the shape, and then using bent slats of wood to smoothly complete the shape.

 

A line the full length of the boat is laid down and divided into equal parts.  From this reference line, various points are set at well determined heights along the line, and to either side.  A framework of cross sections is constructed following these ‘control points’.  The shape is then completed by smoothly bending and attaching slats of wood over the framing.  In this way, a few geometrically determined ‘controlled points’ can govern an entire 3D shape.

The curvature of an instrument’s arching presents very similar challenges. 

What we find in the Cremona making traditions is that geometry recipes give outlines to the various shapes.  But to 3D shape, geometry and proportion recipes also give enough control points all around the plate arching for smooth joining across these control points to complete the full 3D archi

 

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Some Basics of Positioning and Sizing

We must also consider how features of an instrument are sized, and how features are positioned.  There are three main possibilities. 

One is to size things by a measurement, using something like a ruler for reference.  Second is to size things by proportional relationships between features.  For example, make one feature ½ the size of another, etc.  The third possibility is to size by free choice,  just by eye, with no measure or proportion as reference.

It’s fairly straight forward for us to observe the use of proportions in historical making.   We can direct today observe if two parts are in a 3 to 4 ratio, or not. 

Historical instruments show very extensive use of proportional relationships among their parts. 

It’s more difficult however to know if direct reference measurements were used much or not. For example, if I make a bookcase by setting the height as 5 feet, and the width measured as 3 feet, then I’ve both used measurements in feet, and given the case a 5 to 3 ratio of height to width. 300 years in the future, the 5 to 3 ratio will still be obvious to an observer, but the use of feet measurements might not be clear at all – particularly if no one uses our units of measure anymore. We face exactly this challenge in trying to observe measurement use in historical instruments.

It happens that with Cremona making particularly, and to some extent including Venetian and Brescian making, we have a enough clues to suggest that an Oncia unit equal to about 40.1 =/- .15 mm was likely used to set some elements in instrument designs by direct measurement. However, it’s also evident that, aside from a few key initial elements, the bulk of the sizing was by proportional relationships.

At least for Cremona making, it seems the habitual norm was to set a very few initial elements by oncia measure, and everything else following by proportional relationship, with virtually nothing ‘just sized freely’.

 

Historical Intro:

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Cremona Peak

We’re taking a broad look at string instrument making traditions, yet our focus will often draw in on Cremona and its handful of famous violin making families. This happens for a collection of reasons. 

These old Cremona instruments are the most famous and praised of all, and they remain in current concert use.  Since their making, these instruments have been treasured and protected.  Their fame and importance also means that a comparatively large number of examples were cherished and protected over the years, surviving to be studied today.

Cremona instrument making stands out also as unusually unified and consistent over an extended period of time. This consistency again makes it somewhat easier to study. In contrast, Brescian and Venetian making were both comparatively diverse.  But, Cremona making settled into a very cohesive and narrow range for many generations, roughly from 1550 to 1750, these families formed a uniquely close making community. Indeed, the most important families lived and worked on one little plaza in Cremona.  

We can see that the success of Cremona violins was not some isolated lucky turn.  Rather, Cremona making begins by inheriting the benefits of centuries of general European stringed instrument development and evolving traditions of making.  These earlier successes and development gave the foundations that led to Andrea Amati’s greatly successful violin family. 

Then, for nearly two centuries more, Cremona makers focused in on Andrea Amati’s basic designs.  This community of Cremona violin making families developed and evolved their traditions, leading to a peak in violin making running from around the 1690s and into the 1740s.  

 

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Roots to Ancient Greece

If we step back again for a broader view, we can take a much abbreviated journey back to see some of the deeper historical origins of the instruments we know today.

 Our violin today rather directly traces back to the medieval and renaissance lira d’braccio, which grew from the earlier medieval cythara traditions, which grew from ancient kithara traditions, which began as a specialized aspect of Greek lyre traditions.

Of course, along the way, there were many branch offs, and cross breedings of ideas.  Besides the Lyre and Kithara roots of our instruments, ideas also came into the main development lines from descendants of the ancient long necked lutes, with their solid bodies and solidly connected ‘pole’ necks.   

Rather independently, a version of the Arabic ud also influenced European making, giving us the European lute.  As a later development,   bowing found its way to Europe from around 900 A.D., apparently from Mongolian origins only a couple hundred years earlier.  By 1200, European musicians were trying to bow every sort of stringed instrument available.

In the period just before the violin emerged, instrument shapes and types were highly diverse and experimental.  Sometimes an instrument’s sides overlapped the edges, sometimes they came up flush together.  Sometimes an instrument’s corners came together bluntly, sometimes in a pointed corner.  Sometimes fingerboards were flat, sometimes rounded.  Boundaries between instrument types were perhaps less clear.  Is there a clear boundary between a vielle and a lira d’braccio?  Between a vielle and a guitar?  Between a vielle and viol?  In its full form, a lira d’braccio has sympathetic strings and tends to have a flat fingerboard running over the body. A guitar properly has a fretted fingerboard running flush to the body.  A viol typically lacks sympathetic strings, and tends to have a curved fingerboard running over the body, and often fretted.  But, instruments running in between these poles more or less can be called vielles, or fiddles.

About 50 years before the violin proper, we have the early Germanic geigen, and ‘lyre fiddles’.  Typically, theses have many features now in a guitar, including the style of the bridge, fingerboard, and often the sound holes.  Also, the sides are flush to flat plates, like a guitar.  But, these were bowed fiddles. And, to accommodate bowing, the body shape and cut of the center bouts was often extreme. 

Curiously, long after the violin proper was well established and had reshaped most regional making to its features, some Germanic making continued to show many of the archaic features.   Even as late as 1731, well into the peak period of Cremona making, some branches of Germanic making continued producing examples showing such archaic traits.

In 1533, the music theorist Lanfranco published a book in Brescia.  Toward the end of his book, he gives the first mention of violini and makers of these instruments.  Apparently, there were many such makers and making families already established by this time in Brescia, with some of them making something called a violini. 

These were not our modern violins.  However, within a generation, we see surviving examples of violas and cellos from Brescia that are very nearly the instruments we know today.  Particularly, there were two generations of famed makers from the Michelli family in Brescia.  We have surviving cello and viola examples from the younger Michelli, now know commonly as Zanetto. These represent immediate precursors to Andrea Amati’s violin family instruments.

Our surviving instruments from Brescia are likely all from 1550c and later.  But we know that string instrument making in Bresica was already well established and diverse before this time.  Indeed, from Lanfranco’s list of makers we might suspect the community was overcrowded with makers.  

Some of our earliest surviving examples are from Giovanni Maria, who apparently was regarded as a Brescian maker, but who moved to and worked in Venice.  We can see that Brescian making continued to explore diverse archaic types and features during the same time that the Amati family in Cremona was focusing in on a very consistent approach to the new violin family.  By the 1600s, we see the success of Cremona’s violins strongly influencing some Brescian work. Yet, we still see their independence and exploration of archaic making continue nearly to 1700.

History doesn’t tell us the origins of Andrea Amati.  But, we know that by the 1560s he had major commissions with the French Court.  And, we know from surviving examples that he produced a full family of violin type instruments including petite and full violins, contralto sized violas, tenor sized violas, and cello sized basses.  We can also see the very direct kinship of his violin family designs, and the geometry present in Michelli family instruments.  It appears reasonable to suspect he either trained with Brescian makers, or was highly influenced by their examples. 

Andrea Amati’s family of different sized violin type instruments achieved great international success, becoming a foundational component of western music.  This is the violin of Lully, Corelli, and Monteverdi. 

This violin family was then developed further by successive generations of the Amati family, and later by the families of Guarneri, Ruggieri, Stradivari, Bergonzi, et al.  All the best Italian making then followed significantly from these Cremona examples.

From its origins in the North Italian Po river areas, the influence of the new Amati type violin family spread everywhere.  However, various imitations around Europe of the ideal Cremona violin were not equal.  Stainer for example takes the actual techniques and many of the principles he learned from apprenticeship in Cremona into his work, lightly adapting them to a Germanic style. 

The success of the Cremona violins compelled makers around the world to change local violin like instruments to be much more directly imitative of Cremona violins.  In many cases however, makers lacked the sort of inside technical knowledge of Cremona work methods that Stainer had.  Instead, it was much more prevalent to see makers in different regions adapt their local methods to imitate some of the outward aspects of Cremona violins.

 

 

 

Looking at Instrument Making ‘Work Patterns’:

 

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What Can We Know?

We might hope for clarification from the makers themselves.  However, such writings don’t exist, or at least have not so far been found.  A handful of later and more peripheral writings do exist. But none of these represent the core Cremona traditions.  These authors came later, attempting to understand from the outside.  We don’t have any ‘inside’ story for reference. 

Instead, we look at artifacts like moulds and tools, and at the surviving instruments.  We can also learn some from paintings of instruments.  Considering the larger cultural and historical context can also help.

Altogether, our available resources are quite limited.   We would like to know what the old makers did, how they did it, and their reasons.  But, instead, we are limited to observing, building up a partial picture of their practices. Over time, we try to extend and clarify that picture as much as possible by further observation and testing of insights we gather.  Each clarified part of the picture tends to shed further light.  With persistent and critical effort, our picture of the old ways develops from fuzzy and partial into something much more detailed, complete, and sharp. 

But, our picture is always of the observable ‘what’ of the making.  From these observations of ‘what they did’, we can construct reasonable methods to produce the ‘what’ results within the same resources they had, but we can’t truly know if our best guess of ‘how they could have done what they did’ is exactly ‘how they did what they did’, nor can we exactly know what or how they thought about their work.  But, we can confidently uncover ‘what they did’, and be comfortable that our ‘historically consistent’ reconstructions of ‘how what they did can be done’ aren’t too different from their actual old methods.  

Certain things we can know because we can see them by direct observation.  We can see that Cremona makers sometimes left compass point markings pressed into the wood along the center lines of their scroll work.  And, we know they sometimes used dividers while working the button on their back plates.  We can see a center point hole from the dividers on many examples.  And, in a few examples we can see further traces of how they used the dividers in working a button.  These are examples of things we get to know because we can see them. In these cases, seeing is enough.

Direct observation is a powerful tool.  But even here, we need to be disciplined and thoughtful about what we take from our observations.  We can readily see that historical instrument making favored using highly structured shapes and proportions.  It is not always so easy however to confidently identify the correct and full work patterns they used to do their work. 

Part of the difficulty is that well structured work tends to show not just the patterns used in its creation, but also many incidental extra patterns that arise in consequence, but do not represent cause.

It is particularly only when ‘patterns’ help explain what we see not just in a few select examples, but in a whole large range of examples that they are meaningful as actual work patterns.

Cremona violin family making is quite diverse.  They made a range of sizes and types.  And, each maker explored subtle variations of detail and proportion from instrument to instrument.  Viewed in careful detail, Cremona makers created instruments with a very large number of subtle variations.  Yet, there are very stably consistent ‘patterns of work’ that run through the whole range of examples from generations of makers. When we dig deeply enough into understanding their work patterns, in virtual every detail it turns out that their many variations fit within entirely stable work patterns that changed either not at all, or evolved on very slowly and in obvious simple steps.

Consider the overall proportions of the Cremona scroll as an example. 

We might start by observing a famous example instrument, looking to see if we can discover any patterns.  I’m very found of the Lady Blunt Stradivari, so I’ll start my exploration by looking at its scroll. 

After a bit of examination, I might notice an overall ratio ‘framing’ this scroll.  The Lady Blunt’s scroll sits nicely into a 3 by 4 frame.  And, if I check various additional examples, I will find a large number of Cremona scrolls similarly sit cleanly in a 3 by 4 frame.

I might be tempted now to point to a dozen pretty examples of this pattern and declare that ‘Cremona Scrolls were all framed in a 3 by 4 ratio. 

But, the truth of the situation is not quite so simple and pretty.  If we test our newly hypothesized principle against a wider range of Cremona examples, we are going to find some that don’t fit our 3 by 4 frame. 

Andrea Amati’s ‘Witten’ viola from c 1560 is an example that does not fit a 3 by 4 frame.  It does however fit a 4 by 5 frame. 

So this is interesting. We might again be tempted to declare victory and to say ‘here is the rule!’  ‘The Cremona scrolls were all framed by the maker’s choice of either a 3 by 4 or a 4 by 5 frame!’

Well, in deed, this does turn out to be the correct working rule.  Good for us.  We found one of the old Cremona working patterns.

However, as we test more and more examples, eventually we will realize that two further details are needed for our ‘rule’ to be broadly correct for general old Cremona practices. First, the scrolls must be oriented so that our framing ratio is square with a line from the top of the volute to the original top of the pegbox at the nut.  Second, makers can and did include or exclude margins to suit their desires, not our expectations. Once we include these two details, we are indeed corrected in claiming old Cremona makers consistently worked their scrolls by framing the outer volute shape with either a 3 by4 or 4 by 5 ratio.   This is true for their big and little violins, violas, and cellos. 

This assertion is drawn from careful observations across many instruments and many makers.  As a hypothesis, it is testable by observation on any old Cremona example.  And, it tests out as true in essentially all cases. The only exceptions are the few examples that don’t actually have a volute.

It is when we see something repeated many times across groups of examples that we can start taking about a ‘pattern of making’. And, when we see such patterns repeated or evolving over time, that is when we get to talk about ‘traditions’.

As it turns out, we can observe a great many of these ‘habitual patterns’ or ‘traditions’ in historical instrument making, and particularly in Cremona work.

Mostly, these work habits take the form of a ‘structured range of options’ for a particular work choice, a recipe if you will.  In the case of scroll dimensions, the maker has the traditional options of using either a 3 by 4 framing, or if a wider scroll is desire a 4 by 5 frame.  These are the two options traditional to this work recipe for framing the volutes in old Cremona scroll work.

Thus, an old Cremona maker had just a couple of traditional choices that set the large scale size and proportions of their volute.  First, they set the overall dimensions of the instrument, and then of the neck.  These first choices were also made following within Cremona traditions.   Then, in relation to the neck choices they had made, they made some further traditional option choices that set the basic size or height of the volute, and the position where the volute work starts.  Then, they made the choice we’ve been looking at, a 3by4 volute frame versus a 3by5 volute frame. The 3by4 choice was most typical, but if a heftier result was desired, the maker could choose the 4by5 option.

The maker could then tweak the results from this ratio choice just a little bit further by how they chose to include or exclude margins in applying the ratio.

Thus, the ‘tradition’ doesn’t prescribe set explicit results, but instead gives ‘recipes’ which include options and ranges of choices.  In that sense, the maker is still freely choosing and steering the work. The ‘principles’ or ‘rules’ seen in this Cremona tradition, provide a framework or structure for the makers’ work choices.

The actual traditional ‘working patterns’ for Cremona making appear to be essentially stable for they entire era of classical Cremona making, from Andrea Amati through past Del Gesu and Bergonzi.  That doesn’t mean making was static during this era, not at all.  These makers continually experimented, but within the bounds of their traditions. 

Their choices with the recipes changed and evolved, and their results and styles evolved along with their preferences in how to apply the traditional recipes.  But, their developments did not happen by discarding traditions or work recipes. Almost all their development of the instruments occurred by means of the choices they made with the optional elements of their basically unchanging traditional recipes.  The recipes themselves mostly remained stable.  But, maker preferences in the options chosen and details of applying the rules, that developed and evolved.

Thus, with the volute framing recipe we’ve looked at, the recipe itself stays stable during the entire era of classical Cremona making.  But, there is a slight evolution in preferences the makers show in choosing between the 3by4 and 4by5 ratio options in the recipe.  In all the generations of makers, they were more likely to use a 4by5 ratio for the lower voiced and heftier instruments like a tenor viola.  In later generations, they grew more likely to use the 3by4 ratio even with a hefty instrument.  Not a big evolution in this case, but something.

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Some Basics About old Cremona ‘Work Patterns’

We’ve seen one of these ‘traditions’ or ‘’work patterns’ up close now.  Such patterns may perhaps have been important in other making traditions, but only with Cremona making do we have opportunity to study these patterns in detail.

As it happens, this sort of ‘work pattern’ that remained stable across the generations of Cremona making seems to be present in every feature we care to examine.  For Cremona makers, this seems to have been their habitual general approach to all the work.

Perhaps this was even part of what made Cremona making special and different.  There is basically no feature where we do not ultimately find a very structured tradition of work.  From Andrea Amati through Guarneri Del Gesu and Bergonzi, we see a continuous and highly conserved work tradition which developed primarily by evolving the maker preferences in applying otherwise stable recipes. And, such evolution progressed only quite slowly and minimally.

This is not the place to go through the full detail of these Cremona work recipes and their evolution.  Instead, next we will try to understand some of the general principles that run through a great many of these Cremona ‘work patterns’.

 

Ratio Differences by ‘A Part’:

As we’ve seen, ratios play many roles in the old making. Often, recipes will present ranges of ratios as option aspects of the recipes.  In the scroll recipe example, we saw such an optional ‘range of ratios’ in the 3by4 versus 4by5 framing choice.                                                                                    

What is perhaps not so obvious is that behind many of these traditional ratio choices there is frequently a particular type of pattern organizing these optional ratios.  Very frequently, the ratios in traditional Cremona work recipes fall into patterns that are readily expressed in terms of ‘difference by a part’. 

Again, our recipe for framing a violin family scroll provides a good example.  The optional aspect of this recipe is the maker’s choice of ratio, the traditional range being 3by4 or 4by5. Notice that each of this ratios consist of two numbers that differ by ‘1’, that is they ‘differ by a part’. 

Various versions of ‘differing by a part’ end up giving simple ways of expressing most (or all) of the ratio ranges that occur in old Cremona work recipes.

For a physical example, we can consider the lower and upper ‘eyes’ in sound holes.

Soundholes were in fact one of the less settled features in old Cremona making.  The style, positioning, and size of these soundholes were subject to more experimentation and development than most features. And yet, the main recipes behind this developing and changing soundhole work mostly remained stable. Makers achieved the experiments and developments they desired primarily through the optional aspects of the recipes. 

Just on a visual level, we can see a long trend in the sizing of the upper and lower eyes of soundholes.  The first generations of Cremona makers made the upper and lower eyes fairly similar in size, with the upper eyes being just a bit smaller than the lower eyes.  In later generations, the upper eyes grow smaller, with a bigger difference compared to the lower eyes.  This is clear and rather large change running across the generations of Cremona making.

Yet, despite this significant physical evolution of style, the underlying work recipe relating the sizing of the upper and lower soundhole eyes never changed at all. Through the entire era of classical Cremona work, the recipe can be simply said as ‘make the upper eyes a part smaller than the lower eyes’. 

Typical of Cremona making generally, this is a situation where the evolution consists not of breaking or discarding anything, but instead lies in evolving maker ‘preferences’ in the optional elements of otherwise stable traditional recipes.                                                                                                                    

The early generations of makers wanted a small difference between the upper and lower eyes. The accomplished this by making the ‘a part different’ a small part, like 1/8 or 1/6.  Thus, their ratios between the eyes were ratios of comparatively large numbers like 6,7,8,9, giving ratios like 8 to 9 or 7 to 8.   The later generations wanted a large physical size difference.  They accomplished this simply by using lower numbered ratios, such as 3 to 4 and 2 to 3.

This is a typical example. The actual physical working of the instruments evolves over time. But, the very same rule is stubbornly applied in all cases. What changes are not the rules themselves, but the details in applying those traditional rules.  The maker’s preferred ratios in applying a rule change as the making evolves, but the rule is stubbornly retained.  The traditions evolve primarily through the evolution of maker preferences in the ‘optional choices’ within the recipes.

For a somewhat different example of Cremona ratio ranges that can be understood as ‘differing by a part’, we can consider the traditional length to width ratios seen in instrument bodies.

The basic idea here is that all old Cremona violin family bodies have lengths that are somewhat shorter than twice their widths.  Specifically, they are all ‘a part less’ in length than double their width.   Again, a concept easily expressed in terms of ‘differing by a part’.

Thus, we observe only the ratios 2:3, 3:5, 4:7, 5:9, 6:11.  

In each of these ratios, the length is ‘a part’ shy of double the width.  So, for example, double a width of 3 would be 6, but the traditional ratio is 3:5.  Etc.

These are but two simple examples among many.   This device of ‘differing by a part’ was used not just to create the basic ratios and ratio ranges for Cremona work, but also to create the variations and special cases when desired.

 

Maker’s Choice to Exclude or Include Margins:

As we’ve noted, the optional ratio choices in recipes were a first line for creating variations and evolving preferences in Cremona instrument making.

The choice of where and how specifically to apply such ratio calculations offered a secondary line for exploring variations and evolving preferences.

When there is some sort of margin involved in a design, do we calculate ratios including or excluding such margins?

When we are measuring from a feature like a circle, do we measure from the near or far edge of the circle, or perhaps from the center of the circle?

Also, while we are building, does it make sense to measure from the original mould line, or from the outer edges of the plate?  The mould is created first. But, the plate outline is more conspicuous once the work is finished.  But which should we use to calculate ratios?

Cremona makers did not have a fixed answer to this question of including or excluding margins.  What their surviving work shows us is that they took this choice ‘ad hoc’, to make parts slightly smaller or large, etc. to suit their immediate purposes. These choices to include or exclude margins presented one of the freest options the maker had for creating small variations in results. 

Compared to making in places like Brescia and Venice, large scale experiments were comparatively rare in Cremona making. In other communities, experimenting by changing the actual geometry, recipes, and arrangement of features was more common.  But, Cremona makers mostly experimented only within the optional elements of otherwise already stable features and recipes.

Cremona makers all the way to the 1750s mostly stuck to very small scale variations of the same violin family designs Andrea Amati pioneered 200 years earlier. Nevertheless, these experimentations using the optional elements and preferences in feature recipes were a constant and significant part of their making culture.  The choice to include or exclude margins was part of this experimentation, and part of the maker’s liberty and discretion. 

 

Relationships Follow from ‘Key’ References:

Ratio work depends on comparing one thing to another, but were do you start off?   Generally, you need one or several initial ‘key’ things to start off your ratio comparisons.

In Cremona making practice, such ‘keys’ for ratio relationships are occasionally oncia ruler measurements, but much more often they are some other feature that was already established in an earlier stage of the making.

This is subtly different than modern standards.  Our modern standard is that such ‘keys’ are always referring back to some ideal reference like a standardized unit of measure, or a pre-made idealized plan. This modern approach stops errors from piling up and accumulating. It also gives us an endless supply of correction points where we can pull the work back to the idealized plan or design.  However, this modern assumption is in essential conflict with the characteristic nature of old Cremona making.

In old Cremona making, the keys are mostly earlier realized actual features already in the work.  The work flows from step to step like in the natural growth of animals and plants. It is the actual and often imperfect real version of a feature that acts as the key to next steps in the work.  If that key is slightly the wrong size, or slightly in the wrong place, subsequent relationship key off from where it actually is, as it is actually sized.  The imperfections are absorbed into the continuation of the work, and allowed to accumulate.  This is also nature’s way. Wherever the stub of a new branch starts, its growth continues from that stub.  Even roses that are clones of each other grow into bushes and flowers that are each unique in their actual disposition and details.  Their design consists of recipes that nevertheless diverge in results as actual growth proceeds.  They are not corrected back to any planned ideal result. So it also is with old Cremona making.  The work proceeds following set traditional work recipes, but the unfolding results are not push to conform to any prior mapped out result.  Rather, the results unfold and diverge in a natural way.  This difference between modern and old Cremona work styles is essential and characteristic.

 

Uses of Ratio ‘Commas’ for some Relationships:

The difference between two nearly equal ratios is sometimes called a ‘comma’.  In various detailed instrument features, we see makers using such ‘comma’ differences.  

We can see some very precise uses of comma ratio difference in the surviving Stradivari instrument moulds.

He marks two arcs onto his moulds to indicate the full and reduced rib heights. In some cases we see additional arcs as he corrected or changed this choice.  But, in all the arcs marked, they are ‘a part less’ in radius than 1/9 the body length for the mould.  The rib reduction is then shown as the comma between two neighboring ratios, like 4:5 and 3:4. 

Physically Worked in the Wood:

We are mostly looking at ratios and relationships as they are physically walked out by dividers in the wood, then actually marked or pressed into the wood. Cremona making shows many physical tracing of such design markings directly into the wood.  

The rib arcs shown in the mould above presumably served as an actual physical reference to set the blocking and rib heights when making a new instrument.  Such physical wood markings are both clear and enduring.

Yet, working directly in the wood tends toward imprecision and a certain level of natural error. A hole physically pressed into wood is inherently imprecise on the scale of a fraction of a millimeter or so.  Also, when pressing the mark, the wood grain will tend to slightly deflect the position a bit. 

Such physical ratio methods are inherently imprecise.  The actual errors introduced depend on circumstances, and the scale of the work. 

In some cases, such work can be remarkable detailed and fine. For example, proportion methods can readily contrast the difference between 1/9^th the rib height versus 1/10^th.  Such a difference will in fact be around 1/20th mm.  But, approached as a direct comparison, such a small difference becomes clear. 

In other circumstances, very similar physical methods can introduce imprecisions on a much larger scale of 2 or 3 millimeters.  This might easily happen if for example one is dividing the length of a large viola into 9ths.

Such direct working in the wood also encourages the ‘following’ sort of ratio relationships characteristic of classical making.  If you measure a certain detail from the treble side upper corner, working directly in the wood you will natural follow the actual location of that corner, rather than any preplanned location.

In these ways, working directly in the wood is an essential aspect of how classical making arrived at its curious meld of loose precision and perfectly related fit and harmony between elements. It all works together, expressing a making culture that prioritized accuracy of concept above precision of execution.  Their traditions gave them recipes for features that they carried out faithfully, that is using create care to apply the right ideas and ratios to govern the work.  That is to say their work was always accurately targeted.  Thus, if a recipe call to making a certain radius ‘a part less than 1/9^th the body length’, then they would always accurately do that.  Depending on their preferences and their current experiments with variations, they might choose to carry this out as 4/5^th the mould length, or as 5/6^th the outer back length, but they would accurately use the recipe, faithful to community traditions.  But, they way the actually executed these choices in the work tended to be more practical than precise.  And, often enough we see evidence of them working things out directly in the wood.

One could make the mistake of extracting old Cremona ‘working patterns’ and then using them in a cleaned up design environment to create idealized modern type ‘perfect’ building plans.  But, this would entirely miss the central character of classical making, which is beautiful and structured, but neither perfect nor an idealized design.  Rather, this classical work is essentially close and inseparable from its natural rather than perfect materials, and from its human rather than perfect artisan maker hands.

Practical Recipes to Carry Out the Work of Making:

With Cremona making, we have the luxury of having so many examples to study. 

We might wish for more examples in some situations, but in general we have ample examples to uncover the main methods of their working traditions, but also enough to follow the variations and evolution of the traditions through generations of Cremona making.

What we see are thoroughly structured working traditions behind every detail, but also continuous small grained exploration of variations. 

Cremona making traditions combined the constant habit of doing 95+% of their work by repeating choices from recent successful work.  But, Cremona practices also included the constant habit of always experimenting with fine details of a few features in every instrument.

For other communities of makers, we rarely or never have as full an opportunity to observe the patterns and details of their making.  We simply don’t have as deep and thorough a pool of examples to study. But we do have some examples.  And, we can learn at least something of these methods.

For example, we see ample evidence that historical makers generally favored recycling the familiar. Even when creating wildly individual experiments, we still mostly see makers doing this by recombining elements from other successful lines of development.  In that sense, innovation in the modern sense seems to have played a rather minor role in historical instrument development.

Also, outside Cremona, we are much more likely to see major variations on the main features of designs, not just on a fine grain of detail. In this, the Cremona community seems unusual in the degree it held fast to the main elements of its violin family design.  Andrea Amati’s original violin family designs inherited much from Brescian precedents which we can see exampled in Zanetto violas and cellos. What is different about Cremona is that after Andréa Amati set the range and details of his violin families, all the following generations of Cremona masters followed within his basic designs.  They continuing experimenting and evolving the details, but held close to the main strokes of his original designs.

In Cremona traditions, the basic ‘work recipes’ tend to be simple and practical. What we observe are simple applications of the dividers and ratios to govern the features in very direct and straightforward ways.  

In theory, curves could be built in many ways.  But, in Cremona practice, the evidenced shows they strongly favored building curves from smoothly joined compass arcs, with the radii and centers governed by simple proportions.  Where useful, we see the sporadic use of straight line segments smoothly connecting between areas shaped by arcs. 

These recipes appear ‘ad hoc’ and practical. Never do we see any effort to pull in special ‘idea driven’ ratios like phi.  Rather, we find just practical ratio choices in ranges that can be understood in terms of ‘differing by a part’.  Thus, ratios between numbers that literally differ by 1 part are common, like 4 to 5, or 7 to8.    

The more complicated ratios seen are also of a nature that can be understood in terms of ‘a part different’, but in some compound version.  So, we see things like ‘double, less a part’. This gives the length to width body ratios for example: 2:3, 3:5, 4:7, 5:9, 6:11   In each of those ratios, you get the 2^nd number by doubling the first number and taking away 1. So, 4 doubled is 8. Take away one gives you 7. Thus, 4:7.    

The same approach is seen when they want to create variations for something that started off as a simple division like ½ or 1/3.

Consider a feature that you’d like to place near the middle of a length, but just a bit to one side.  If we placed the feature exactly halfway, we could express this mid position in the ratio 1:1.  To understand this, think of the full length as 2.  Then the distance from each end to the feature in the middle is 1.  So we make our ratio of these distances to the ends, 1:1.   

Now, to place this same feature ‘a bit off center’, we create a ratio variation using the traditional ‘a part difference’. This time, let’s count the whole length as 8.  Then the distances from the middle to the ends are each 4, and our ratio is 4:4.  To create an off center variation, we change one of these numbers ‘by a part’.  Here we will add 1, getting the ratio 4:5.   Now, we are counting the full length as 9.  Our variation ratio of 4:5 puts the feature ‘a bit off center’, just as we desired.  

Of the many ways they could have created ratio variations; it is this device of ‘a part different’ which appears again and again in old Cremona working recipes.

So, what we generally observe is that the various features and details in any example have been worked in some practical way using dividers and rule, and governing the sizing, proportions, and positioning with simple ratios.

In the case of Cremona violin family instruments, it goes a bit further.  We find the same features from one example to the next worked with the very same divider and rule geometry, and with ratio choices that fall into certain traditional ranges.  The differences among Cremona examples mostly boil down to the choices of ratios among the traditional options, and the details of how the geometry and ratios are applied, that is how margins are included or excluded, etc.  Though, in some areas of the work, like the curves of the head and in the corner work, the traditions can include some options in the divider and rule geometry itself.

These are the ‘working recipes’ by which making is carried out.  In Cremona practice, we these recipes change either not at all, or evolve only very slowly.

We nevertheless see trends and fashions in the ways Cremona makers shape their results.  Because of the optional aspects of their traditional recipes, the Cremona makers were in no sense pinned down or limited by their habitual work recipes. Rather, these methods provided structure in their work, without inhibiting the maker from steering and shaping results

Let’s consider what would happen if a Cremona maker had wanted to create a completely new shape in some instrument.

The sort of ‘first layer’ of their work habits would encourage following just a few primary basics: 1) structure the shape with dividers and rule, 2) govern size and placement with simple proportions following from the rest of the work, 3) if helpful key some one or few features by oncia measure.  These few principles give basic structure to any work, but also still allow full freedom to the maker.

As a next layer, their habitual work habits would encourage making the new shape by recycling geometry and ratio solutions from other successful work rather than inventing from scratch.  Again, much is gained, while loosing nothing.

Here, we see a basic pattern for work traditions: layers of working habits giving structure even when approaching something new, plus layers of habit encouraging the repeat and reuse of already successful methods. 

In some communities like Brescia, this basic formula empowered robust exploration of different instrument designs on a macro scale.  Thus a viol maker in Venice might try repositioning soundholes, adding additional soundholes, are varying the actual geometry of a soundhole.  In Cremona however, they appear to have fully settled on their basic violin family designs in the first generations of the Amati family.  So, in Cremona, this same basic formulation was used to empowered exploration on a more micro level, evolving and refining the community’s basically stable violin designs.  If they had wanted, the same principles could have assisted Cremona makers in more significantly altering and developing the designs, but apparently these makers did not feel that need.

That doesn’t mean that Cremona violin design was static.  Far from it!  As noted earlier, constant experimentation and development was a vital part of instrument making culture in general, including for the Cremona makers.  They simply considered more parts of the violin design as already basically settled.  Their experiments ran within comparatively narrow bounds.

Here we see the scale of change across lira d’braccio instruments from several Brescian makers, compared to the much narrower scale of change seen in violins by several Cremona makers:

 

One aspect of these old methods is that they are not well adapted for producing precise copies.

No.  The maker’s application of the rules and all the specific choices made in using the recipes are critical.

To duplicate a design, you must duplicate the full range of those choices. Only if you repeat all the same specific choices with the ratio options and all the same specific choices in the application the recipes do we a full repeat of the design choices. 

But even then, we will only have repeated the design in principle. Even in a complete repeat of all design choices, the old methods inescapably lead to asymmetric and irregular results.

This is way even in the most careful and precise examples from Stradivari himself, the treble and bass sides, as well as the top versus the back, never exactly precisely match. Asymmetries and irregularities are always characteristically present in old Cremona work. It is not error, but a natural intrinsic aspect of their methods and traditions.   

These old methods are very sensitive to vagaries of the build process itself, and to the materials.  The sides particularly are built by methods that are only minimally controlled and will always produce irregular results.  The outlines in turn are designed responsively to these sides and will always take on asymmetries arising from following the sides.

These old methods completely fail in producing regular, symmetric, or precisely repeated results. 

Undeniably however, these same ‘imperfect’ methods excel at consistently producing beautiful and wonderful results.

 

 

 

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Larger Trends and Guides Steer

Evolving and Developing Traditions

Across Many Lands and Many Generations:

                                   

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Many Communities, Many Lines of Development

The Cremona makers particularly seem to have developed recipes and habits of practice for virtually every detail of every feature. And, the town of Cremona is most of all famous for bringing the violin family to a peak of perfection. But, that treasured Cremona making didn’t come from nothing.  Nor was violin making success entirely limited to Cremona.

Players, collectors, dealers, and makers have generally identified historical Italian and North Italian violin family making as special.  Particularly, the Po river valley area including Brescia, Cremona, and Venice command the greatest honors.  And, the international making traditions that originated and spread from these communities receive greater honor and attention than making traditions that have only more distant relation to the violin’s Cremona epicenter.

So far, we’ve been looking at how Cremona used traditional methods of making to codify and then perfect a stable singular violin family. Their traditional ‘work recipes’ provided a sort of backbone or encoding of the basics of their design choices. They then explored and evolved their choices within a very narrow range, reaching a peak of results from around 1690 through 1744 in instruments of Antonio Stradivari and Guarneri ‘Del Gesu’. 

By the end of that Cremona peak, much of their practices had influenced other communities of making.  Some Cremona trained makers moved to and worked in other communities.  This includes Guarneri family members ‘Peter of Mantua’ and ‘Peter of Venice’.  It also includes G.B. Rogeri who trained in the Amati workshop but then moved to and worked in Brescia. 

As the influence of Cremona successes grew, some making in Venice and Brescia as well as other communities became more a continuation of Cremona traditions than not.  Thus, after Bergonzi in Cremona, we see something of a break in the continuity of making in Cremona itself.  Yet, much of their traditions continue a while longer in neighboring making communities.

So far, we’ve looked mostly at how traditional methods and ‘working recipes’ led to a perfecting and stabilizing of the Cremona violin family.  However, we can also learn from exploring the long and varied lines of more general European stringed instrument development. In fact, Cremona’s very specific development of the violin family follows off many centuries of prior general stringed instrument development spread across many nations.

We will continue our explorations by looking at some of the larger trends and aims we can observe in general historical making traditions. These are not the specific recipes used to carrying out the work in a structured way, but the equally important aims and intentions that helped steer a maker’s choices in applying recipes to achieve desired ends.  These are also the larger trends that shaped the longer lines of evolution and development of stringed instruments.

At times, we will again focus on Cremona, but often now we will look further afield, and further back in time, as we consider various topics in the larger development and trends of string instrument making.

                                    

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About General Sizing

If we measure Cremona instruments with the historical Cremona oncia, violin body lengths were basically a little less than 9 oncia. Special small sized violins ranged down to about 7 oncia. Tenor violas were in a range from 12 down to around 11 oncia.  Contralto violas were more around 10 oncia in length. Cello bodies mostly ranged between 17 and 20 oncia. Before the cello and double bass, makers in various communities produced various now archaic basses that ranged smaller than the later instruments, sometimes around 16 oncia. The later double basses, violone, and bass viols vary considerably, approximately ranging from 24 to 30 oncia in body length. 

Should such measures be applied to the mould line? Moulds were after all created and designed before the instruments. But, perhaps applying ratios and measures to the outer edges of an instrument shape would make more sense? When you look at a finished instrument after all, the outer edge seems like an obvious way to measure. But, while still building an instrument, is it so obvious which way to measure?  Yet again, one could measure from the purfling.  Perhaps that is best?  Among other roles, the purfling echoes the line of the mould and actual sides. Perhaps we should measure from the purfling?

Careful examination across the full range of Cremona examples shows they did not have one settled answer to this question of where to apply measures and ratios.  Rather, this was one of the liberties reserved to makers.  The makers took this choice ‘ad hoc’ to their suit their immediate purposes.

These margin choices also play a role in the oncia measures of Cremona instruments.  An 8¾ oncia choice gives a larger result if we apply it to the mould then if we apply it to the final body length and then use some sort of inset to create the mould.

All through the classical Cremona period, makers produced violin family instruments in a wider range of sizes than the market now accepts.  They made many violins that are smaller than we commonly play today, and many cellos and violas that are larger than we play today. 

Some of these outsized instruments were reworked in later times to better conform to modern sizing standards. Others fell out of use. Some of our best preserved and least altered examples of Cremona making are in fact outsized instruments that were therefore spared heavy use over the centuries.  No one plays the tenor viola today, nor the very small and piccolo violins that were part of the original scene.  

We might also consider that the ways we commonly discuss and measure instrument lengths have changed with time.  Even over recent decades we’ve seen our norms for instrument measurement shift some.  Just a few decades ago, it was commonly accepted to take sizes with a loose tape measure, over the plate arching.  While functional enough for the purpose of dealer descriptions and identifications, such over the arch tape readings obscure and inflate the measurement.  Now, there is a growing preference to measure with calipers, avoiding such arching complications and obfuscation of the actual body lengths.

One consequence of today’s high precision caliper measurement of the old instruments is that it exposes how imprecise the creation of these instruments actually was. There is growing recognition that historic instruments are highly unequal, with precise dimensions of the top and back plates generally differing significantly.

Let’s briefly consider today’s standard violin sizes in terms of the old Cremona oncia (40.1mm +/- .15mm). If you take 8 5/6 oncia, you get about 354.2mm length.  Basically, this is the standard violin length today.  If we take 9 oncia, we get 360.9mm.  Today’s market tends to treat violins over 362 as too large, and under 352 as too small.  But, the original Cremona makers were much more varied.  Many violins a bit smaller than today’s standard were part of their normal production of instruments.

Lastly, we should recognize that high precision ‘down to the 10^th of a mm’ sizing is entirely modern for instrument making. The top and back lengths of historical instruments very often differ in length by several mms. Such variances betray any notion of high precision ruler measurements in the old making. While such modern precision measuring has its own virtues, we must consider that these modern tools and priorities are not the most natural way to understand the old making.

 

                                     

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About Instrument Midsections

The historical instruments mostly fall into a few body shape types.  The violin family instruments of course generally have four corners, on a peanut shaped outline. 

But, the principles at play in the violin arose from more general roots which encompass all the many shapes from various historical lines of development.

With rectangular and ovoid shapes, the concept of a midsection to the instrument is naturally tied to the actual middle of the body length.  With other instrument shapes, competing concepts interact in determining the midsection.

Some of these shapes have obvious ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ body regions. 

This notion can be visually clarified by drawing a box or square frame around each.  If the body length is great enough, a gap results between these boxes.  And, if the body length is short enough, an overlap appears.  It can also happen that these upper and lower boxes just exactly meet.

In all cases, these boxes reveal a concept of the middle section which relates not just to the body length but also to the upper and lower widths of an instrument. This concept of midsection is a kind of average or mean, taking account of body widths as well as the length.

Only when the upper and lower widths are equal does this lap or gap match the actual middle of the overall body. 

When the upper and lower widths differ, this sets up two different competing senses of the mid-line. Various other features of an instrument might end up getting aligned to the actual mid-length of an instrument body, or to mid-section implied by the lap or gap area created by the upper and lower area squares.

Interestingly, the development of historical making tended to favor this lap/gap notion of the middle sections in preference to a simple calculation of half the body length.

The various features of instruments tended to be placed in relationship to the midsection, and at times in relationship to the upper and lower regions of the body.  Soundholes and the bridge line are examples of features that tended historically to be related to various conception of the midsection. And, often these formed a sort of constellation of features.

Bowing an instrument also tends to encourage giving it a waist.   And, incorporating an in-cut waist tends to lead to also adding corners to an instrument.  All these features tended to get related to the midsection.

Virtually every combination of such elements was explored in historical instruments.  Soundholes can and were placed in upper, mid, and lower sections of instruments, and in many multiple combinations. 

In archaic examples, we sometimes see all this elements centered together at the actual middle of the instrument, a natural enough starting point for instrument development.  Illustrated in a Boethius illumination of a medieval lira d’braccio shown above, we see the sound holes and waist centered at midway along the body length, but with the bridge placed just above the soundhole area.

Here, we have an Italian example painted by Costa only a few generations before the actual violin emerged.  This ‘violetta’ has straight sides with equal upper and lower section widths.  Thus the ‘mean’ line and the actual middle of the body length match.  The sound holes are arranged around this middle.  The bridge line is then below this, about half way toward the end of the body.

Along the way we see many schemes to relate the bridge line, soundholes, and corners to the overlap or gap between the upper and lower regions of instruments.  To see this, it can be useful to draw in square frames around the upper and lower regions.

It’s natural to try to very directly relate elements of the midsection to the gap/lap created by the upper and lower bout squares.  In some archaic cases, the relationships are very direct and simple. 

In the Zanetto violas from Brescia, we already find the basic elements later taken into Andrea Amati’s violin family designs.   The proportions of the body make the lap area relatively narrow.  The waist of the instrument falls within this gap.  The upper eyes of the sound holes also relate to the gap area. But, the bridge line is lower down, even a bit below the actual middle of the instrument.  The lower eyes fall so that the bridge ends up roughly midway of the sound holes.  The lower corner level relates to the lower eyes.  The upper corners are placed creating a loose symmetry of the corners above and below the waist.

When we compare this to an Andrea Amati viola, much is basically the same, though proportions have shifted about some. The waist and upper eyes still fall in the lap area, The bridge line is still below the actual middle. The lower eye level is such that the bridge ends up essentially midway the soundholes, and the lower corners follow the lower eyes.  The upper corners are placed giving a rough symmetry between the corners above and below the waist/upper eyes.

Earlier makers explored the possible arrangement of these midsection elements in a more fundamental way.  With the old Cremona making community however, we see the general layout of these elements established from the beginning. 

Indeed, the main strokes of design were inherited from Brescian precedents.   As is typical with most design features of the violin family, Andrea Amati’s recasting of a Brescian precedent laid firm foundations for all the Cremona making that followed. 

Many points of design that were open for experimentation in the general larger making traditions, became settled closed points of design in the Cremona traditions.  Though, on a finer level of detail, Cremona makers continued to experiment with the exact relationships of elements within these settle points of their community traditions.

 

We might also notice some of the incidental consequences of this Cremona arrangement of the midsection elements.  

For one, it creates a midsection ‘bridge island’ delineated by the cut of the soundholes.  The bridge sits in the middle of this island.  The placement of the corners and the waist interrelate to this bridge island, framing the structural stiffness and flexibilities surrounding it.  The result is that this island can move and wiggle in relative independence from the sides and the rest of the structure.

The arrangement also delineates two comparatively closed air cavities in the body of the instrument, one above and one below the sound holes. 

From 1450 to 1550, we witness a bestiary of wildly different and inventive bowed instrument designs.  But, from 1550 to 1650, the violin emerges as dominant, reshaping bowed string making everywhere.  And, specifically, it is the Cremona violin that won, becoming the instrument of court orchestras, composers, and violin masters.  This was the violin of Monteverdi, Lulli, Corelli, et al.

Were the narrowness of their experimentation and the thoroughness of their traditions fundamental to Cremona success?  Were these key to their community’s effective evolution of violin design? 

For centuries before Andrea Amati, European instrument makers experimented with all forms of bowed stringed instruments. Certain persisting instruments types developed.  But even within something like the lira d’braccio, we see great variation with the gross major elements of design. Only a few points like the shoulder hold, general size, and sympathetic strings are consistent throughout lira d’braccio history. 

This long exploration and evolution of possibilities meant that Andrea Amati didn’t need to start from nothing. Instead, he could recast a successful Brescian design into a range or family of sizes. Remarkably, Cremona makers then continued with this initial design as their tradition and primary product for almost 200 years. These makers refined and evolved Andrea Amati’s designs, but did not change the broad strokes.

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About Instrument Body Construction and Sides

With the sides, as with all the other features, general historical instrument making explored many possibilities for hundreds of years, with Cremona violin making then settling on one distinctive approach. The Cremona making families then evolved that approach very effectively, but only minimally, across a period of nearly 200 years.

Before considering outlines and edge details, we should look some at how the basic approach to the instrument body and sides can and did vary in several significant ways.

 

Solid versus Constructed Instrument Bodies:

The first and biggest difference among instrument body types is that some are solid carved or even solid preexisting objects like skulls or pots, while other instrument bodies are constructed.  The second big difference is that some instrument bodies lack sides, being more rounded or shell shaped, while others have definite sides. 

All of these body types however tend to have separate distinct tops.  But, these tops present further major distinctions between instruments.  Some such tops are flush to the body or sides, while some overlap.  Other tops can actually be stretched skins, like a drum.

The main ancestors to the violin mostly trace their heritage back to two very ancient instruments, to the so called ‘long necked lute’, and to an ancient version of lyre known as the Greek kithara. 

In their most ancient forms, both long necked lutes and lyres were sometimes made from animal skulls or turtle shells.  But, by Greek times, the kithara lyre was already an instrument with a constructed body.  The long neck lute continued much longer as either a solid carved body and neck, or as a solid body with a pole neck driven through or directly attached. Ceramic bodies were also used at times.  Some solid carved long neck lute bodies are made of wood shaped to imitate a portion of a ceramic vase.

 

Many Historical Lines of Development:

The history of these things is long and convoluted with many threads that twist and overlap, separating and recombining many times. And, the long development of these instruments crossed cultural boundaries. The origin of bowing itself appears to be in the Mongolian stick fiddles. The basic form of these stick fiddles appears to derive from the very ancient long neck lutes that were seen around the world. 

For European instrument history, the lyre and long neck lute lurk in the misty past of almost everything that later developed.  Instruments that have shell shaped or solid carved bodies tend to have the long neck lute as a distant ancestor. Instruments with box like or constructed bodies tend to have the lyre in their history.  

Kithari were a kind ancient Greek lyre, associated with special playing techniques and very skilled and professional players.  Kitharas and their playing continued robustly into the Roman era, and on into the middle ages. Both the instruments and the playing methods for kithari continued to develop over its very long history.

Through most of the Greek and Roman periods the kithara is essentially a lyre with a constructed wooden body. Over time, we see examples of the instrument getting longer and longer.   By the Byzantine period and the middle ages, we see the development of necked kithari with various lyre shaped bodies and long sometimes fretted necks. 

By the middle ages, a new but very closely related cythara appears. This is essentially a constructed body long necked kithara, but with the neck and body merged. Like most early kithari, this instrument was played with a plectrum. The cythara is a direct ancestor of the lira d’braccio, and an important ancestor to many of the instruments we know today.

The lines of instrument development are not direct and straightforward, rather they interweave extensively.  What starts in one line of development is then borrowed into other lines and explored.  Even the naming of different instrument types morphs and swaps around considerably over time. Some of the names fall into related groups: kithara, cythara, guitar; vielle, viol, violone, violin, fiddle; citole, cittern, gittern. But, all these names and meanings change and overlap too much to be very illuminating.

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At various moments in history, we get a few clear archetypes which can then serve as reference points in the convoluted flow of instrumental development. 

      ---Kithara:

If we look far enough back in time we have a fairly clear picture of the ancient kithara as a lyre with a constructed sound box body, often elongate, and with a complex and highly developed playing technique.  We don’t know much about that technique. The instrument was plucked or strummed. The fingering techniques likely involved harmonics and suppressing strings, rather than just stopping strings to adjust their playing length.

      ---Necked Kithara:

Somewhat later, we have the necked kithara.  These may have continued elements of the earlier kithara playing techniques, but at least some of these were apparently fretted, presumably incorporating stopping techniques. 

      ---Early Medieval Cythara:

In early medieval times, we see the cythara.  This is now an elongated instrument with neck and body rather unified, and constructed.  The instrument is generally played with a plectrum. The fingering technique might have continued some elements of kithara playing, such as suppressing strings.  While this instrument derives from the kithara, it has a body shape and a plates and sides construction that points much more directly to the later European instruments that developed.

      --- Medieval Citole:

This kind of instrument very directly displays its cythara and kithara heritage.  As sometimes happens in other instrument types, the citole often has ‘shoulders’ at the top of the body that echo a lyre shape.  In many other respects citoles can resemble a shortened cythara instrument.  Citoles also tend to have solid body/sides, sometimes with a carved connection behind the neck, including a cut out for the hand. Like the cythara, theses are commonly shown played with a plectrum.

A renaissance version of the citole developed retaining many aspects of the medieval citole.   

 

 

 

 

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In their earliest versions, all these instrument types were plucked.  But, starting after 950 A.D., we start seeing evidence of bowing reaching Europe.  By about 1250 A.D., Europeans are exploring bowing with basically every sort of instrument possible. We also see a trend toward shorter bodies, and longer necks, generally fretted. We also see evidence of double strung instruments with elongated and often curled peg head shapes to accommodate larger numbers of strings. 

 

In this period around 1250 A.D., we see a great deal of experimentation.   Features cross very freely between instrument types.  More instrument names emerge.  We now see reference to gitterns, citterns, and vielles.  Arabic influences also appear.  Rebec type instruments and lutes are seen.

Coming from this period, a few types of types of instrument emerge which are central to developments leading to the violin family and other instruments we know today.

      ---Lira d’Braccio:

The most fixed and significant of these is the lira d’braccio.  This instrument derives quite directly from adding a bow and neck to a cythara. As the name braccio declares, this instrument was held on the shoulder, limiting its potential size.  It also generally has sympathetic strings. It isn’t entirely clear, but the fingering technique may have entailed a mix of stopping and suppressing strings, as well as use of harmonics and chords of 3 or more notes. Most early depiction show a flat fingerboard, favoring the bowing of many strings at once rather than one at a time. These instruments were played and made continuously from late medieval times through to the height of classical Cremona. The Brescian and Cremonan makers produced a number of these instruments.

The construction of such lira developed over their long history.  Many features of violins are seen early and sometimes first in these instruments. 

Generally, lira d’braccio show constructed sound box bodies, though some examples borrowed in solid carved sides or solid carved bodies from the citole side of instrument making.  We also sometimes see the plate edges flush to the sides, but in later examples we commonly see the plates overhang the sides, again anticipating the later violin design.  In the early examples, the fingerboards were generally flat, but they tended to extend over the body somewhat. These had elevated bridges and a tailpiece, all pointing the way toward violins.  Lastly, lira d’braccio instruments include some of earliest examples of arched top plates. 

 

 

      ---Vielle: 

This is perhaps a comparatively loose label.  A vielle or fiddle could encompass almost anything bowed.  And, it serves as a catchall for instruments that lack the full features of some better defined type, like the lira d’braccio, or the violin, or the viol. Most typically, a vielle would have a neck and fingerboard rising over the body, a body shape either ovoid or peanut shaped with a waist and lacking corners. The stringing would neither fully be that of the lira, the viol, or the violin.

 

      ---Citterns and Gitterns:

These labels also have long and loose histories.  Many varied instrument shapes and types have taken these names. While gitterns tended to be double strung, many citterns weren’t.  What’s important for our study is that a kind of cittern emerged with diverse body shapes and stinging arrangements, but generally having straight sides flush to the edges of their flat plates. 

These citterns are often shown plucked. But, many such instruments with this same construction type are also shown bowed. 

Should we call these ‘bowed citterns’?  Perhaps they could be called ‘cittern type vielles’? However we label these instruments, they encompass a great range of exploration and historical instrument development. 

We also see ideas from this kind of instrument borrowing into and influencing other lines of development.

In addition to their flush sides, these instruments typically use flat fingerboards, generally directly level to instrument’s top.  The plates generally appear flat.  Round sound holes are often used.  A variety of bridge and tail arrangements are seen.  But often the bridge is comparatively lower toward the end of the instrument.  The bridges and tails are sometimes elevated, and sometimes low and flat to the instrument in a lyre style. Unlike spade peg heads seen on the lira d’braccio and the cythara before that, these usually have slanted back or curled peg head arrangements, sometimes with an actual pegbox.

 

Toward the Violin Family:

While a number of eventual violin features appear first in the early lira d’braccio line, it is the shape experimentation in these ‘bowed citterns’ that leads to the eventual violin shape, and to the viol family.  Along the way, this line also gives us the various Germanic geigen types that flourished before the Cremona violin reshaped things again.

It is in these instruments that we see experiments with actually ‘cut-in’ waist sections instead of just the gentle peanut curves seen in the early lira d’braccio and continued in some vielles. 

Many ways were explored to cut-in a waist, beginning with simple inward circle arcs.  These experiments led in many directions.  In some cases, this developed the extreme ‘shield’ shapes seen in some of the geigen designs.  In other cases they led to extremely cut-in and narrow waists.

In some lines of development, we see the use of elevated and rounded bridges, and elevated fingerboard that extend over the body of the instrument.  It is these lines that led to the viol family.  

These experiments developed somewhat differently in various regions. In Italy, for example, we don’t so much see the flat top Germanic geige type of development. But, relatively early on, we see the combination of these new body shape experiments with arched tops, an idea perhaps borrowed from the lira d’braccio line.

This line takes us many steps closer to the emergence of true violas and violins, combining an exploration of cut in center area shapes with an elevated bridge and fingerboard, soundholes arranged around the bridge, and arched shaped top plates. In these first stages, the Italian instruments are still mostly using sides that are flush to body outline.

 

However, when these experiments cross with existing trends in Italian lira d’braccio, we start to get plates overhanging their sides, and with cornered center shapes now approaching the eventual viola and violin developments.

Here, we have an early 1500s Milan example.  The top is arched and has near modern arrangement of the bridge and soundholes.  The body shape is no longer the medieval peanut or ovoid, but has learned something from other lines of development.  This shape even has lower corners now.  The sides however are neither the straight flush sides of a cittern type instrument, nor the actual overhang plates of a violin. We again see this transitional approach to lira sides which are carved sides with an inward swoop.

While exact dates are generally uncertain, somewhere in the range from 1520 to 1580, we see Brescian makers start exploring overhanging plate designs in some instrument types.  Linarol made a late example of a lira d’braccio with the scooped carved style of sides dated 1563. But we also have an example from Giovanni Maria with overhanging edges.  We also have violas and cello examples from Zanetto showing overhanging plates. 

We should notice that this archaic ‘scoop carved’ approach to sides and the later ‘overhanging plates with straight sides’ have some structural parallels. Both are comparatively thin and pliant mid-height of the sides. Both are somewhat T-bar like and structurally strong where the sides and plate join. 

 

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Violin Corners:

In Cremona, we know they started off using overhanging edges from the beginning. And, while we don’t how early Andrea Amati started, we know it was before 1564.

Even after Andrea Amati started producing his violin family instruments in Cremona, all these various development lines continued in different ways around Europe.  Often, ideas crossed between lines of development with interesting and sometimes illuminating results. 

One of the unique and somewhat odd features of the violin family is how the corners all end in little stubby cut off shapes. 

We can understand the origins of this feature by contrasting violin shaped instrument bodies that have flush sides to those that have their plates overhang the sides.   When the sides are flush to the edge of the plates, the corners are better supported and don’t need to end in cut off snub shapes.   We can see this in an English viol from the later half of the 1500s made by William Bowlesse in London.

Contrasting different instruments from Zanetto tells the same story.  A small bass by Zanetto with flush sides has sharp corners.  But his violas have overhanging plates, requiring the snub cut type of corners.

It is the overhanging of the plates that leads to the stubby corners seen in violins.

 

 

 

The Construction of Violin Sides:

To explore the longer lines of development of the sides and body construction and design, we’ve toured broadly now through a number of historical instrument types.

Of course, Cremona always presents a unique case.   We can dig further now by focusing on Cremona methods of building and working sides, outlines, and plates.

Cremona sides are bent from thin flat slats of wood, often maple.  These ribs are bent and glued to interior blocks of wood at the corners, neck, and bottom of the instrument.  Along the top and bottom edges of the ribs, interior linings are glued in place, giving a wider surface to the sides to attach and glue the back and top plates.

It would probably be wrong to say Cremona sides were designed in this way.  Rather, the general cultural development or evolution of making arrived at these particular details of design and construction for Cremona violin family sides. 

And, once again, while we see the larger European making community continue to explore the larger choices and options in making instrument sides, the Cremona making community experimented only with comparatively small choices that refine and develop their preferences in making sides.  But, they never stray far from Andrea Amati’s starting point, which, as we’ve previously noted, was substantially inherited from things already seen in Brescia.

There are some interesting physical consequences to this design the Cremona makers chose to endlessly repeat.

For one, sides made this way are very wiggly, elastic, and flexible if separated from their plates.  Partly, this means that if we knock the sides with some energy, rather like plucking a string, the energy rolls around in the sides as wiggly motion for a comparatively long while before dying down. 

Another interesting physical consequence is that that the sides of this design are much more pliant to motion ‘in the plane of the plates’ than to motion ‘out of the plane of the plates’. 

Indeed, these sides are rather resistive to ‘out of plane’ motion. 

One consequence of this, and of several other features of the plates themselves, is that this design allows or encourages a relative independence of ‘out plane’ motion in the center regions of the plates compared to near the edges and sides structure.

 

The Use of Cremona Moulds:

These Cremona sides are inseparable from their traditional construction and design methods.  With Cremona making, we are fortunate not only to have large numbers of surviving instruments to study, but also a fair number of the moulds they were built around, and some additional artifacts giving further clues to the making culture and methods.

Most all the information and mould examples we have are associated with Stradivari, but we have some later moulds, including Bergonzi.  Also, we have one mould that may have been inherited into Stradivari’s workshop, perhaps from the Amati family. 

As we’ve mentioned at several points, Cremona instrument designs are realized by a long series of choices made during the course of building an instrument.  This not only makes it unnecessary to fully set all the details of a design before building, but, given their working methods, it also makes such ‘a priori’ design choice impossible to precisely realize with Cremona methods.

Many of the choices related to the sides and the outline are in fact interactive with the actual build, and not entirely predictable or controllable ahead of time, not using the old physical methods.

Before we make Cremona sides, we need a mould to bend and assemble the sides on.   To make the mould, we need to settle the design of the mould, either during or before making the mould.  We could begin by fully designing an instrument on paper.  We could then work backwards to design the mould. Then we go ahead and make the mould. 

Once we have a mould, we can use it for years to make many instruments.

These moulds are basically wood boards cut to the outline of the sides. Additionally, small cut outs are made to receive blocks of wood that will become the internal blocks holding the sides together. Holes are put in the board near the block cut outs to allow a system of posts and binding blocks to assist in bending the ribs and gluing them to the blocks. In some larger moulds, pairs of handholds are cut out along the middle of the moulds.

To use these forms, piece of wood which will become the internal blocks are cut to length and glued into the mould recesses.  The outer faces of these blocks are then carved to follow the proper outline shape. 

After the blocks are prepared and glued in place, slats of wood for the ribs are reduced to an appropriate thinness. Then, these are first bent to fit the mould, then bound and glued in place. 

The old Cremona makers used a curious system of posts and counterforms bound tight to clamp the rib stock in place for gluing.

To complete the work, the rib pieces are trimmed, and additional pieces of lining wood are bent and glued inside at the top and bottom edges of the sides. Curiously, these lining pieces merely butt up against the blocks, except for the linings of the center rib pieces.  Cremona makers instead traditionally mortised these center lining pieces into the corner blocks, making the center section somewhat stiffer.

After the sides with their blocks and linings are built around the mould, a neck is attached and the sides are removed from the mould.  But, once free of the mould, our new assemblage of neck and sides is wiggly and flexible. Further, we will inevitably discover that this old Cremona method of working the sides does not yield perfectly symmetric or truly square results.  Moreover, once released from the mould, the wood tends to move and change shape further, not precisely retaining the outline shape from the mould. 

If one wanted, it would be entirely possible to preserve a planed outline design through the stages of designing the mould, building sides on that mould, and then freeing the sides from the mould.  But, the outline design can not be preserved through these work stages using classical Cremona methods.  The classical methods don’t aim to protect that initial design outline. 

Instead, what we see is a process that ignores this issue of any consistent design persisting through the work stages.  A mould is designed and made.  Then, at some later time that mould is used to make sides.  At this later time, the original design might be used as a guide in making the sides, or the mould can be used to aim at some modified design.  The corner blocks can be easily altered if desired. And, the mould can be used in rather flexible ways while building sides.  But regardless, once the sides are made and removed from the mould, there follows something of a disconnect from any earlier intentions for the instrument design.  Once off the mould, the sides are flexible.  These sides will provide a basis for the actual design and work of the back plate of the instrument, but before this happens these sides can be flexed and adjusted to give a back that is any of longer, short, wider, or skinnier than the mould design would suggest.

Old Cremona making uses a process that redesigns the outline at multiple stages of the work, following the immediate needs of the actual state of the developing instrument.  Design of the mould, the making of the sides, and the design and making of the plates are each related, but semi-independent.  They each follow from the earlier work, but in a somewhat flexible way.  Any irregularities that develop in one stage of work are not ignored or correct, but rather absorbed into the next redesign of the outline. 

This makes controlling away irregularities unimportant.

And indeed, we don’t see Cremona makers changing their work process to make it less prone to irregular free movement of the wood, etc.  Instead, they stick to this error inviting processes for 200 years, and many generations and families of makers.

In fact, it isn’t until the French makers in the early 1800 that we see such changes of process intended to allow cleaner less irregular work. Such clean up was part of a modernization of making theorized by Chanot and carried through by Vuillaume.

The Cremona makers certainly could have moved in those directions, but their concerns apparent lay elsewhere.  They happily persisted in their irregular, asymmetric, unsquare methods for generation after generation.  They liked these results.

The modern notion of high quality workmanship owes much to the concerns of mass production.  To mass produce, you need interchangeable parts.  For that you need consistent accuracy and precision to a set ‘a priori’ design plan.   But, long before those priorities developed, work was all hand fit and custom designed. 

Cremona violin family making followed that older paradigm.  Rather than worry about precise conformity to any prior design, their concerns go into unique hand processes that absorb natural irregularities into the essential beauty of the work.

That is the priority we see in the Cremona processes.  Each step absorbs the irregularities and actual state of the prior work. 

And, therefore, at each step, the concern is for beautiful work, with each step completely related to whole.  But deep concern for absolute regularity is foreign to these old methods.  That is not to say they aimed for irregular sloppy work. Far from it! But, the Cremona makers consistently used methods that only weakly controlled the work to prevent such variances.  And, indeed, many aspects of their processes naturally absorb and even induce significant unplanned but accepted irregularities.

So, back to tracing their work process to understand how the outlines of their moulds, sides, and top and back plates actually relate.

An initial mould design gives us a mould.  From that we build an actual set of sides for an instrument.  The mould’s design very much influences these sides.  But, the work process is loose enough that some degree of irregularity will surely come into the work. 

We then detach these sides from mould, and attach a neck at this point.  Released from the mould, the sides will even less perfectly retain the original design.

A modern builder would likely consider such divergence from the original design plan to be a problem. The Cremona solution is to simply accept these circumstances and bypass the problem. 

These wiggly imperfect sides are pinned in place to a board which will become the back plate of the instrument. The sides are pinned with pegs at their top and bottom blocks. We can still see wood plugs filling the holes from this pinning on the plates of classically made instruments. Imitations of these pinning holes can be seen on many later copies of classical making.  But, in the old methods they actually served a critical necessary purpose.

Once pinned to the back board, these flexibly wiggly sides can be pivoted on the pins a bit, and the sides can be pushed around and maneuvered some to accommodate a back outline the maker will like. 

Care at this stage is taken to get a straight alignment of the neck and center line of the instrument. 

Once the maker has a desirable arrangement of the pinned sides on the board everything is temporarily clamped in place.  An etching of the sides is traced into the back board. 

The clamps, sides, and pins are then removed. 

The maker then creates the actual outline design for the back plate, giving it a good relationship to the etched outline of the sides.  The traditional outline geometry recipes allow the maker to adjust to the etch outline of the sides as they actually are. 

The maker then creates the actual outline design for the back plate, giving it a good relationship to the etched outline of the sides.  The traditional outline geometry recipes allow the maker to adjust to the etch outline of the sides as they actually are.

Once the back is carved, the pins will facilitate realigning the back plate and the sides to glue them together.  All of these steps tend to push and pull on the sides, moving them some. 

Once the assembly of the sides and neck are glued to the back we use this assemblage to create a new trace on the board that will become the top plate.  Again, pins are used to facilitate later reassembly.  But twisting and arranging are not used this time.  The sides for the top are etch just as they fall. 

Once again, the maker works a fresh outline for the top, reconciling with sides as well as possible.

These Cremona processes protect the beauty and integrity of the work, but not accuracy to any prior planned design -- just as nature consistently makes beautiful roses, but never perfectly even roses. Natural beauty is always subtly varied and irregular.

This Cremona system of multiple redesigns of the outline has interesting consequences. 

Besides absorbing and even inducing irregularities and asymmetries, this approach also imposes an indirectness and partial independence of design at each stage. This means not only that naturally arising variances can sneak into the final plate designs, but also that makers can intentionally create many varied designs from one mould. 

To start, the corner shapes can be changed just be carving the corner blocks differently.  

You can also change length and proportions to some degree when aligning and etching the sides.  Beyond these things, one can also carve blocks that stand proud from the mould outline, or even introduce shims on the mould. 

Some authors have suggested that Del Gesu might have worked his entire range of violins from one mould.  In any event, the Cremona system certainly gives opportunity to create variations from one mould.

Most of the moulds we still have are attributed to Stradivari. 

He clearly made violins in vastly more variations than we have moulds. Nevertheless, he apparently wanted to remind himself of some of the initial design choices when he created moulds. 

In his moulds, we see many details of the intended corner designs and rib heights are encoded and displayed on his moulds. 

 

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About Instrument Plates

The first thing to note about instrument plates is that the tops and backs are not generally equal.  

If we take the broadest view of tops and backs, their functions are very different. 

In concept, the back and sides work together. Together, they hold the top. In turn, the top makes direct contact with the bridge, thus carrying tension and receiving vibrations from the strings. 

Backs and sides work together in their task, and are generally made of the same materials. In contrast, tops and backs have very different jobs, and are not even made of the same materials in most all cases.  

The tops are generally made of a lighter soundboard material like spruce or other conifer wood. Backs and sides hold the top and generally are made of somewhat more solid woods like maple or beech. 

In the broadest view, a stretched skin sometimes takes the place of a top plate, and sometimes the top is held in place by sides only, with no back present at all.  The strength of the neck generally connects to this back/sides assembly, forming a solid frame to receive and hold the top.

Due to their functions, we see more variety in backs than tops.  The back/sides function of framing or holding the top plate can be fulfilled by a wider range of constructions.

This function can be fulfilled by a rim shape without back, by a shell shape, or by a back and sides type shape.  Any of these can be solid carved or an assembled construction.  

In contrast, the top tends to be a flat plate, a stretched skin, or sometimes a more complicated carved or arched shape. 

Archetypally, the back functions as a frame to attach the neck, hold the top, and carry the tensions of the instrument.  The top functions as diaphragm that vibrates under direct connection to the stings, and radiates sound to the air.

For some instrument types, backs can have further characteristic roles.  With the violin family for example, the back also serves to enclose a body of air, support the soundpost, and to resonate with some vibrations and radiate sound itself.

Perhaps these differences in function and historical roots are why there seems to be so little concern for truly matching top and back plates, even in instrument types where it wouldn’t be difficult to do so. 

Arching of plates seems to be a later development, perhaps beginning in the lira d’braccio line.  Regardless, we see extensive use of flat top plates throughout history, and of flat back plates when there is a sides and plates construction.  

The arched tops seem to have emerged in lines of instruments that explored elevated bridges and fingerboards that passed over the top plate.  Even in these cases however, flat plates often persisted.  It appears that flat backs persisted in many cases even after the tops became arched. 

Before 1400, a very few depictions of lira d’braccios appear to show arched tops.  But, aside from this line, flat plates extensively or entirely predominated. In the early 1500s, we see general explorations of arched tops, and then later also arched backs.

In Brescia, we once again see a wide ranging exploration of the possibilities.  We see examples carved to sink down from the edge and then rise again.  We see examples that come in from the edge in a fairly level way, then rise to create a general hill at the bridge and soundholes, as well as along the center.  We see examples carved with odd crest lines angling in from the corners.

And, once again, while Bresica and the rest of European making were exploring just about every possibility on a broad scale, the Cremona making community started off with an inherit successful basic design, and then explored only very narrowly to develop and evolve their arching only in small limited steps.

Let’s look at some aspects of Cremona arching that were already present in some Brescian examples.

First, there is a ‘channel’ all around the plates where the curvature dips down from the edge before rising again. This carved channel runs just inside the edgework, all around the plate and through the corner areas.

This feature is seen in all old Cremona arching, but also in some early Brescian violas and cellos.  Along with this channel, we also see purfling and a raised or ‘lipped’ working of the edge shape. 

This feature is seen in all old Cremona arching, but also in some early Brescian violas and cellos.  Along with this channel, we also see purfling and a raised or ‘lipped’ working of the edge shape. 

The edge shape rises to a crest line between the purfling and the outer edge of the outline.  These are all features carried over into Andrea Amati’s violin family work, and continued by all the generations of classical Cremona making. 

Some people have likened the resulting sunken channel around Cremona plates to a moat that one can imagine filled with water and encircling the raised arching in the middle of the plates.

            

 

 

 

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Conclusions:

The history and traditions of European stringed instrument making are vast.

Our aim here is not to exhaust the topics, but only to sketch a reasonably clear picture of how such traditions arose, and how they operated practically.

Such artisan instrument making and its traditions remain shrouded, and to some extent will always be partially unknowable.  Despite the challenges, we’ve tried to illuminate and expose something of these traditions. 

We have a fair amount of evidence showing ‘what they did’, and ‘what they did repeatedly’.  As a matter of expedience, we’ve limited our conception of ‘tradition’ and rooted it in the idea of habitually repeated work patterns.  The historical traditions we’ve observed in this way essentially are seen to arise and develop through a combination of trying every possibility, and then repeating what works – essentially by ‘trail and error’. 

In totality, it might be fair to label this long development of instrument making and its traditions as a process of ‘cultural evolution’.

In the case of old Cremona traditions we’re very lucky. It’s natural that we have more detailed and better information in some situations than in others. With the old Cremona making, we have our best opportunities to observe. We simply have more and better quality evidence to examine, more surviving examples, more shared information and research, more relevant artifacts.

A new sort of commercially driven culture of violin dealing and making arose in 19^th century Europe, after the peak of Italian making culture in the mid 18^th century. This new dealer/maker culture revered the old Italian masters, but also followed new commercialized and modernized work methods and priorities.  Instead of honoring the old making by continuing to make in the old ways, they used their new ways to produce modernized instruments, but copying aspects of appearance from old master instruments. 

The old traditional methods of making were laid aside and forgotten. 

Some of the copies, like those of Lupot and Vuillaume were very detailed and respectful, but still modernized in construction. Some other modern method instruments were made not as honoring copies, but made as deceitful forgeries meant to fool buyers. 

But, the vast bulk of 19^th century instruments were made cheaply and rapidly in large numbers.  Often the notion of copying was reduced to a few loosely executed aspects of style distinguishing a mass produced ‘Strad’ model from an ‘Amati’ model.

From baroque times on into classical and then romantic eras, the best players toured and performed with their treasured Cremona and Italian instruments. 

Even as the French modernizations and innovations were ramping up, international artists like Viotti and Paganini toured Europe with their old Italian Stradivari and Guarneri violins.  Beethoven’s friends honored him with the gift of a quartet of Cremona instrument. Luigi Tarisio made a career bringing Cremona instruments from Italy to be resold in Paris.  Vuillaume was tied in to all of it.  The old Italian instrument remained at the top of the new violin dealing culture. 

Copies, depending on their quality, were the less costly or even cheap alternative.

Sadly, not only were the old ways of making no longer used, they also were forgotten and lost.  If in the later 19^th century a maker had wanted to recover the old methods, it would have been an impossibly challenging task. 

The way the old makers switched around the application of their rules to explore variations also has the effective of making it very difficult to uncover the patterns of their work by examining only a few examples at a time.  To uncover the patterns of their work it is very helpful, if not absolutely essential, to freely examine and compare shapes across a collection of many dozens of classical examples.  And, it is very helpful to be able at will to check a hypothesis against all the generations of Cremona making whenever the researcher has a question to test.  Until recently, such a free exploration against a sufficiently large and high quality collection of instruments was not available to anyone.

Recently, technology has greatly expanded are opportunities to observe the old making.  This is the only reason it is now possible to uncover the old methods. 

In the past, only a very few individuals in the best dealer workshops would have the rare opportunity to examine a large number of the old instruments.  However, this contact with the instruments would necessarily be spread out across a lifetime.  One could collect notes and sketches over the years.  But still, comparisons between an instrument you saw 5 years ago and one you saw 12 years would be limited to the details you knew to take note of with each instrument. 

Today’s computer images and information sharing make it possible for almost anyone to compare hundreds of historical instruments directly to each other in any combination that might be illuminating. Computer methods also make it possible to go back to instruments with new questions whenever they occur. Such liberty greatly assists the researcher in efforts to uncover the work patterns behind these instruments.

We also have growing collections of high resolution CT scans that accurately show the shapes and thickness and internal details of the instruments, similar to X-rays but much clearer and precisely detailed. Even more recently, we’ve begun to get micro-layered non-invasive imaging of the structure, materials, and layering of instrument finishes, even down into the wood structure.  This promises to answer many outstanding questions about classical varnishes and finish in the coming years. All these things enable studies of the old methods that were previously impossible to conduct.

What we see as we study the old making are highly conserving and slowly evolved traditions, centuries in the making.  Even when historical makers were casting about and exploring every possible combination of arranging the waists, soundholes, bridge line, and midsections of instruments, they did so by conservatively recycling and redeploying elements of earlier experiments.

When the f shaped soundhole emerges, it does so by taking the geometry of an earlier C shaped soundhole design and horizontally flipping the geometry of the lower half.  Typical of all the instrumental developments, this emergence of an f shaped soundhole is less an invention of a new design element than a redeployment or evolution of the use of old design elements.

The invention and progress of the historical makers was achieved not by scraping old successful work patterns and recipes, but by conserving them and evolving their applications as the various lines of instruments developed.

Even in something as iconic as scroll work from the peak of Stradivari’s golden period, what he does is achieved with just the slightest evolution of the same scroll work recipes used by the Amati family from the first generation of Cremona making.  And, Andrea Amati’s original scroll work is achieved with just a slight evolution of the ratio choices and work recipes from earlier Zanetto work in Brescia.  In turn, those older Brescian scroll methods result from long lines of development that reach back to the early middle ages, and even further.

What breaks in the 1800s with the introduction of modernized commercial, innovative, and copy methods is the continuity and conservation of these long evolved traditional methods

In the old ways, carving a scroll is guided by a composite of many traditional recipes and the choices made using them.  The maker is not just acting as an individual, but as member of a community of making with deep heritage and continuity.  And, the exploration of liberty and will within this community tradition and structure is taken in small meaningful chunks.  Each step in the work is structured by tradition.  Along the way, many choices are made, giving this particular carving its specific design.  The relationships between each step of the carving and the available options are all understood.

When we break away from these traditions however, the scroll becomes a mysterious whole result. We can copy a whole example, but the awareness of where and how the work breaks into smaller steps traditional choices is lost.  The modern copyist can act as an individual artist and rework the mysteries of the scroll through personal genius.  Or the modern copyist can work mechanistically by copying an example from the old artisans.  But, lost was the possibility of freely cooking up a fresh scroll from the traditional recipes of the old community of Cremona makers. 

For most of the last 150 years, Cremona violin making and design has been revered, but it’s also been something of a black box.  We no longer knew how to build up a Cremona design in its natural steps.  

Only recently has this situation begun to change.   We have begun to open that black box and once again understand how such classical designs were built up from small traditional recipes and choices.  And, now we again begin to see how the parts of such designs hang together and can naturally and traditionally be varied.

As we begin to uncover the old methods and traditions, many previously closed possibilities begin to open.

For one, we can examine the choices and preferences of the great old masters in using these traditions. We can uncover the differences in these choices that distinguish one maker from another.  We can follow the trends and evolution of these general traditions.

This kind of new information can be put to use in many ways.  The historian might just be interested in telling the story of old Cremona making with greater detail.  But, makers can also put such information to use. 

Some makers might still prefer to focus on making copies of particular instruments.  The research shows that the old methods themselves do not well support the copyist’s efforts to duplicate the particular detailed results of a build.  So, such copyists probably wouldn’t want to resuming ‘doing as they did’.  However, the knowledge of the particular design choices in an instrument being copied might well help the maker achieve more faithful and more deeply accurate results.

Other makers might want to use parts of the old methods, but not all.  Perhaps a maker has there own ideas they wish to pursue.  They still might find some of the old ways inspiring or constructive to incorporate into their work.

Lastly, some makers might want to attempt a full revival of old ways, to ‘do as they did’. 

In its fullest version, some might want to revive a community of makers committed to full resumption of the old methods.  We could in a sense reopen the book and continue the old dialog.  Such a community combining a great conservation of the traditional with a modest degree of small scale experimentation might essentially pick up where the old Cremona community left off.  With a bit of luck, such a community might again stumble into conditions yielding a renewed and effective cultural evolution of the violin family.