e finger board,
was furnished with twenty-four wire strings, stretched close under the
sounding board, where they sounded by sympathetic vibration. This was
the instrument which Prince Esterhazy, Haydn's patron, so much
admired, and for which Haydn wrote more than 150 compositions. Its
form is shown in Fig. 41.

[Illustration: Fig. 40.

VIOL DA GAMBA.

(From Reissman's "History of German Music.")]

[Illustration: Fig. 41.

THE BARYTONE.]

It is not easy within present limits to apportion the various steps by
which the violin reached its present form. The first eminent master
of violins, as distinguished from small viols, was the celebrated
Gaspar da Salo, who lived and worked at Brescia during the latter part
of the sixteenth century. The model varies, and the sound holes are
straight and flat. His violins are small and weak of tone, but his
tenors and basses are much sought for. His model was followed some
time later by Guarnerius. The real mastership in violin making was
attained at Cremona, in Lombardy, where were many religious houses
with elaborate services, and a surrounding population of wealth and
artistic instinct afforded the mechanic an appreciative public. It
was here early in the sixteenth century that we first find the Amati
family in the person of the oldest known violin maker, Andrea, from
whom Fetis quotes two instruments dated 1546 and 1551. One of them is
a rebec with three strings; the other is a small violin. They are a
distinct advance over the violins of the western school, but they stop
very far short of the modern instrument. The tone of his instruments
is clear and silvery, but not very powerful. The most eminent of the
Amatis was Nicolo, 1596-1684, a son of Geronimo and grandson of
Andrea. The outline is more graceful, the varnish deeper and richer,
and the proportions of his instruments better calculated. His
instruments have greater power and intensity of tone, and his tenors
and 'cellos are very famous. But the Cremona school came to a
culmination in the works of the pupil of Nicolo Amati--Antonio
Stradivari, 1649-1737. This great master of the violin pursued the
principles of the Amati construction down to about 1700, having then
been making violins for upwards of thirty-three years. After 1700 he
changed his principles of construction somewhat, and developed the
grand style distinguishing his later works. He marks the culminating
point of the art of violin making. It was he who p