The origin of stringed instruments; ancestors of the violin—Perfection of the violin and advance in violin technique; use of the violin in the sixteenth century; early violin compositions in the vocal style; Florentino Maschera and Monteverdi—Beginnings of violin music: Biagio Marini; Quagliati; Farina; Fontana and Mont’ Albano; Merula; Ucellino and Neri; Legrenzi; Walther and his advance in technique, experiments in tone painting—Giov. Battista Vitali; Tommaso Vitali and Torelli; Bassani; Veracini and others—Biber and other Germans; English and French composers for the violin; early publications of text-books and collections.
The origin of string instruments of the violin family is involved in much obscurity and it would be impossible to discuss here the various theories concerning it which have been stated with more or less plausibility by musical historians.[42] A preponderance of authoritative opinion seems to favor the theory that the direct ancestor of the violin was the Welsh crwth, a sort of harp, which seems to have been played with a bow. Venantius Fortunatus (570 A.D.) mentions this instrument in the much quoted lines: Romanusque lyra plaudit tibi, barbara harpa, Græcus Achillaica, chrotta Britana canat. (‘The Roman praises thee with the lyre, the barbarian sings to thee with the harp, the Greek with the cither, the Briton with the crwth.’) The fact that the old English name for the fiddle was crowd furnishes an etymological argument in favor of the crwth. It is, of course, possible that the idea of using a bow with the small harp was first suggested by some instrument already in existence. The Arabs and other peoples had instruments roughly approximating the violin type. One is inclined, however, to the assumption that the violin was not developed directly from any particular instrument, but came into being rather through the evolution of an idea with which various races experimented independently and simultaneously.