The violin, viola, and cello were first made in the early 16th century, in Italy. The earliest
evidence for their existence is in paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari from the 1530s, though
Ferrari's instruments had only three strings. The Academie musicale, a treatise written in 1556 by
Philibert Jambe de Fer, gives a clear description of the violin family much as we know it today.
Violins are likely to have been developed from a number of other string instruments of the 15th
and 16th centuries, including the vielle, rebec, and lira da braccio. The history of
bowed string instruments in Europe goes back to the 9th century with the Byzantine lira .
Since their invention, instruments in the violin family have seen a number of changes.
The overall pattern for the instrument was set in the 17th century by luthiers like the prolific
Amati family, Jakob Stainer of the Tyrol, and Antonio Stradivari, with many makers at the time
and since following their templates. Early history
The two earliest bowed instruments are the ravanastron and the omerti found in
India and made of a hollowed cylinder of sycamore wood. They were played in the
manner of a cello. Also in China, another two-stringed bowed instrument was the erhu.
The direct ancestor of all European bowed instruments is the Arabic rebab , which
developed into the Byzantine lyra by the 9th century and later the European rebec.
In Welsh, the equivalent were the three- and six-strings crwths .
The Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih of the 9th century was the first to cite the bowed
Byzantine lyra as a typical instrument of the Byzantines and equivalent to the rabāb used in
the Islamic Empires of that time. The Byzantine lyra spread through Europe westward and in the
11th and 12th centuries European writers use the terms fiddle and lira interchangeably when
referring to bowed instruments . In the meantime rabāb was introduced to the Western Europe
possibly through the Iberian Peninsula and both bowed instruments spread widely throughout
Europe giving birth to various European bowed instruments. During the Renaissance,
the rebec came in different sizes and pitches: soprano, tenor, and bass. The smaller versions
of the instrument were known in Italy as ribecchino and in France as rubechette.
Over the centuries that followed, Europe continued to have two distinct types of bowed instruments:
one, relatively square-shaped, held in the arms, known with the Italian term lira da braccio
family; the other, with sloping shoulders and held between the knees, known with the Italian term
lira da gamba group. During the Renaissance the gambas were important and elegant instruments. The
very successful family of fretted viols appeared in Europe only few years before the violin.
They eventually lost ground to the louder lira da braccio family of the modern violin.
Emergence The first clear record of a violin-like instrument
comes from paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari. In his Madonna of the Orange Tree, painted in 1530,
a cherub is seen playing a bowed instrument which clearly has the hallmarks of violins.
A few years later, on a fresco in the cupola of the church of Madonna dei Miracoli in Saronno,
angels play three instruments of the violin family, corresponding to violin,
viola and cello. The instruments depicted by Ferrari have bulging front and back plates,
strings that feed into peg-boxes with side pegs, and f-holes. They do not have frets. The only
real difference between those instruments and the modern violin is that Ferrari's have three strings
and a rather more extravagant curved shape. It is not clear exactly who made the first violins,
but there is good evidence that they originate from northern Italy, near Milan.
Not only are Ferrari's paintings in that area but also towns like Brescia
and Cremona then had a great reputation for the craftsmanship of stringed instruments.
The earliest documentary evidence for a violin is in the records of the treasury of Savoy,
which paid for "trompettes et vyollons de Verceil", that is to say, "trumpets
and violins from Vercelli", the town where Ferrari painted his Madonna of the Orange Tree.
The first extant written use of the Italian term violino occurs in 1538,
when "violini Milanesi" were brought to Nice when negotiating the conclusion of a war.
The violin quickly became very popular, both among street-musicians and the nobility,
which is illustrated by the fact that Charles IX of France commissioned an
extensive range of string instruments in the second half of the 16th century. Around 1555,
the French court imported a dance band of Italian violinists and in 1573, during one of Catherine
de Medici's celebration "the music was the most melodious one had ever seen and the ballet was
accompanied by some thirty violins playing very pleasantly a warlike tune," wrote an observer.
The oldest confirmed surviving violin, dated inside, is the "Charles IX" by Andrea Amati,
made in Cremona in 1564, but the label is very doubtful. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has
an Amati violin that may be even older, possibly dating to 1558 but just like the
Charles IX the date is unconfirmed. One of the most famous and certainly the most pristine is
the Messiah Stradivarius made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 and very little played,
perhaps almost never and in an as new state. It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford.
Early makers Instruments of approximately 300 years of age,
especially those made by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù, are the most sought-after, by both
performers and collectors. In addition to the skill and reputation of the maker, an instrument's
age can also influence both price and quality. The violin has 70 parts, actually 72 if top and bottom
plates are each made from two pieces of wood. Each of the separate parts is indispensable. The
most famous violin makers, between the early 16th century and the 18th century included:
Micheli family of Italian violin makers, Zanetto Micheli 1490 - 1560,
Pellegrino Micheli 1520 - 1607, Giovanni Micheli 1562 - 1616, Francesco Micheli 1579 - 1615,
and the brother in law Battista Doneda 1529 - 1610 Bertolotti da Salò family of Italian violin and
double bass players and makers: Francesco 1513 - 1563 and Agostino 1510 - 1584 Bertolotti,
Gasparo Bertolotti 1540 - 1609 called Gasparo da Salò
Giovanni Paolo Maggini 1580 - 1630 pupil of Gasparo da Salò
Giovanni Battista Rogeri 1642-1710 Amati family of Italian violin makers,
Andrea Amati , Antonio Amati , Hieronymous Amati I , Nicolo Amati , Hieronymous Amati II
Guarneri family of Italian violin makers, Andrea Guarneri , Pietro of
Mantua , Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Guarneri , Pietro Guarneri , and Giuseppe Guarneri
Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, Italy. Rugeri family of violin makers of Cremona, Italy.
Francesco Rugeri , and Vincenzo Rugeri . Carlo Bergonzi of Cremona, Italy.
Jacob Stainer of Absam in Tyrol Transition from Baroque to modern form
Between the 16th and 19th centuries, several changes occurred, including:
The fingerboard was made a little longer to be able to play even the highest notes .
The fingerboard was tilted a little more, to produce even more volume as
larger and larger orchestras became popular. Nearly all old instruments were modified,
including lengthening of the neck by one centimeter, in response to the raising
of pitch that occurred in the 19th century. The bass bar of nearly all old instruments was
made heavier to allow a greater string tension. The classical luthiers "nailed" and glued the
instrument necks to the upper block of the body before gluing on the soundboard,
while later luthiers mortise the neck to the body after completely assembling the body.
The chinrest was invented in the early 19th century by Louis Spohr.
The results of these adjustments are instruments that are significantly different in sound
and response from those that left the hands of their makers.
Regardless, most violins nowadays are built superficially resembling the old instruments.
Trade violins In the 19th and 20th centuries numerous violins
were produced in France, Saxony and the Mittenwald in what is now Germany, in the Tyrol, now parts of
Austria and Italy, and in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. About seven million violin family
instruments and basses, and far more bows, were shipped from Markneukirchen between 1880 and 1914.
Many 19th and early 20th century instruments shipped from Saxony were in fact made in Bohemia,
where the cost of living was less. While the French workshops in Mirecourt
employed hundreds of workers, the Saxon/Bohemian instruments were made by a cottage industry of
"mostly anonymous skilled laborers quickly turning out a simple, inexpensive product."
Today this market also sees instruments coming from China, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Recent inventions More recently, the Stroh violin
used mechanical amplification similar to that of an unelectrified gramophone to boost sound volume.
Some Stroh violins have a small "monitor" horn pointed at the player's ear,
for audibility on a loud stage, where the main horn points at the audience.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries before electronic sound amplification became common,
Stroh violins were used particularly in the recording studio.
These violins with directional horns better suited the demands of the early recording
industry's technology than the traditional violin. Stroh was not the only person who made
instruments of this class. Over twenty different inventions appear in the Patent books up to 1949.
Often mistaken for Stroh and interchangeably known as being Stroh-viols, phono-fiddles, horn-violins
or trumpet-violins, these other instruments have slipped into comparative obscurity.
The history of the electric violin spans the entire 20th century. The success of electrical
amplification, recording and playback devices brought an end to the use of the Stroh violin
in broadcast and recording. Acoustic-electric violins have a hollow body with soundholes,
and may be played with or without amplification. Solid-body electric violins produce very little
sound on their own, and require the use of an electronic sound reinforcement system,
which usually includes equalization and may also apply sonic effects.
Electric violins may have four strings, or as many as seven strings. Since the strength of materials
imposes limits on the upper string, it is usually tuned to E5, with additional strings tuned in
fifths below the usual G3 of a typical four-string violin. The five-string electric violin shown in
the gallery below was built by John Jordan in the early 21st century, and is tuned C G D A E.