In the Fifteenth Century—two hundred years later—something else happened,—something of importance for the whole future of music. People began to make bowed instruments corresponding to the various kinds of human voices; consequently, these were the treble, or discant, viol; the tenor viol; the bass viol; and the double-bass, or violone.
The next thing that happened—also in this Fifteenth Century—was the invention of corner blocks, which followed naturally from the cutting of the waist, although it took a long time to think of it. You will notice if you look at the illustrations facing pages [22], [24], [30], [34], and [38], that a violin has two sharply projecting points on each of its sides, one at either extremity of the f-holes at the waist of the instrument. These sharp corners mark the position of triangular blocks inside the violin. These blocks are glued to the back and to the belly of the violin and the ribs of the violin are glued to the blocks. These blocks are the very corner-stones of the construction of a violin; and they add very much to the strength and the resonance of the instrument.
ST. CECILIA
By Jan and Hubert van Eyck
If you look at the violins and other bowed instruments in many old Italian and Flemish paintings you will see that they have only single corners, as, for instance, the large viol the Angel is holding in the picture of St. Cecilia facing page [18]. Nobody seems to know whether single, or double, corners came first; but after a time only double corners were used.
The use of these double corners produced something else that was new. This was the curving of the ribs at the waist forming a hollowed-out place called bouts; and these bouts gave the right hand of the player more freedom to move up and down with the bow. Up to this time the position of the performer’s hand was stiff and cramped unless there was a tremendously high bridge to carry the strings. So when the ribs were curved and the bouts cut, the player’s hand could move more easily and naturally.
But even so, the shape of the violin was not fully determined. These bouts were made according to the idea of every individual maker. They were small and deep in some instruments, long and shallow in others. They were often of enormous size and out of all proportion to the general form of the instrument. Pictures of these old models look very queer to us now.
About the beginning of the Sixteenth Century long and shallow bouts were universally used and the violin began to take the simple and graceful form with the double corners with which we are familiar. But, notwithstanding all these improvements, we have not yet arrived at our perfect violin. The sound-holes, those two curved openings called f-holes, on either side of the bridge, were not yet in their proper place.
These f-holes were subject to a great deal of experimenting. Strange to say in the old vielle, or viole, of the Troubadours they were often very nearly in the place they occupy to-day, that is to say partly in the waist and partly in the lower part of the instrument; but the invention of the bouts displaced them, and, sometimes (indeed very often), they appear right down at the very bottom of the instrument near the tail-piece, as you will see if you look at the picture facing page [70]. Makers had an idea that the belly should be left as strong as possible and that the cutting of these f-holes made it weaker. At first they used a round sound-hole, like that of a guitar, right in the middle of the instrument. Then they made a pair of crescents, or large C’s turned face to face, as you will see if you look at the Angel playing in the picture of St. Cecilia facing page [18]; and they liked this so much that they used these C’s for a hundred years (in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries). Then came the “flaming-sword” as in the viola d’amore facing page [50]; and then the f-hole. But at first the f’s were placed back to back. Finally, about 1580, the Italian makers cut their f-holes front to front.