een changed in the upper portion of the body of the instrument,
to permit of modern passages being executed with greater facility. The
original finger-board was short, and generally fretted. The number of
strings was five or more, and not as we now string them with three or
four. It will be seen that this form of instrument gives us what Mr.
Charles Reade describes as the invention of Italy, namely "the four
corners."[20] The same author in speaking of the order of invention
remarks that he is puzzled "to time the Violono, or as we childishly
call it (after its known descendant) the Double Bass. If I were so
presumptuous as to trust to my eye alone, I should say it was the
first of them all." With this opinion I entirely agree, and I am also
in unison with Mr. Reade in believing that the large Viola (played on
or between the knees) was the next creation, the design of which was
that of the Violono or Double Bass already referred to. The next and
most important step was in all probability to make the common Geige or
three-stringed Fiddle of the same shape as these Tenor and Contralto
Viols, thus handing to us the present-shaped Violin. In the MS. notes
of Lancetti, reference is made to a three-stringed Violin in the
collection of Count Cozio di Salabue, which throws some light upon the
question as to three-stringed Violins, of the form of the Italian
Viola, having been made prior to the introduction of those with four
strings tuned in fifths. The instrument to which Lancetti refers was
dated 1546, and was attributed to Andrea Amati. Until the beginning of
the present century, this instrument remained in its original
condition, when it was altered by the Brothers Mantegazza of Milan
into a Violin with four strings. Mention of this curious and valuable
fact furnishes us with the sole record of a three-stringed Violin
having been in existence during the nineteenth century, and also
supplies the link needful to connect the old type of Fiddle with the
perfect instrument of the great Italian makers. When or where the
four-stringed Violin tuned in fifths first appeared in Italy is a
question the answer to which must ever remain buried in the past. It
may have seen the light in Mantua, Bologna, or Brescia. The
last-mentioned town is usually associated with its advent, and to
Gasparo da Salo is given the credit of its authorship.

[Footnote 20: "Cremona Violins," _Pall Mall Gazette_, 1872. This
reference applies to the corners an