Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

'
708 STRADIVARI
STRADIVARI
a plague which caused innumerable deaths, and
compelled all those who could do so, to leave
the city. It is further recorded that Hieronymus
Amati, his wife and his daughters, succumbed
to the disease ;
but there is no indication that
Alessandro Stradivari and his family were still
at Cremona at the time, and Mandelli has
perhaps rightly interpreted the complete lack
of documentary evidence regarding the date
and place of Antonio Stradivari's birth, to
signify that his parents had fled to some haven
of refuge where in the fulness of time Antonio
first saw the light. The names of the three
children above mentioned are the only entries
to be found in the birth registers relating to
children born in wedlock to Alessandro Stradivari,
and the only direct allusion to the relationship
existing between Antonio and Alessandro
Stradivari is furnished by the contract for the
purchase of his house wherein he signs himself
'
Antonio Stradivari, son of the late Alessandro.
The earliest authentic evidence of Antonio
Stradivari's residence in Oremona has been
supplied by a violin—dated 1666—recorded by
Alfred Hill, in whose hands it has been. The
original label in this instrument runs as follows :
'
Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis Alumnus
Nioolai Amati, Faoiebat Anno 1666,' followed
by the familiar Maltese cross and the initials
A. S. enclosed within a double circle. He was
then—as will be gathered later—twenty -two
years of age and, it may be assumed, had prob-
*
ably served an apprenticeship to Nicolo Amati
for the seven or eight preceding years. It is
quite possible that he began to insert his own
labels some years before 1666, but this date
may be said to have marked the later limit of
his pupilage ; in any case it proved his competence
to claim the authorship of his own
instruments, and the labels found in his violins
of the following year bear no allusion to Nioolo
Amati, nor is there any further reference to his
master on the labels of any of his later instruments.
Following the same lines of deduction,
the year in which Antonio Stradivari was born
has been generally accepted as 1644, by reason
of his custom of adding his age to his labels
during the latter part of his life. It would seem
as though the venerable maker, with a pardonable
pride, desired to impress his contemporaries,
as well as succeeding generations, with his
unflagging vigour and skill by recording his age
within his instruments. In 1732 he states
himself to be ' 89,' in 1736, 92 and ' ' in 1737,
' 93.' Another noticeable feature of these
labels is the alteration in the spelling of his
name. About the year 1730 he seems to have
'
discarded the first orthography, i. e. Antonius
Stradiuarius, ' and replaced the u with a roman
V. The origin of this change may have been
a chance misprint which commended itself to
him ;
but it was certainly not due to any
orthographical views on the part of the Stradi-
vari family, for his son, Omobono, still continued
to employ the earlier, while Francesco adopted
the later spelling.
Accepting the year of Antonio Stradivarius's
birth as 1644, we find that he was twenty-three
years of age when he married Francesca Feraboschi
in 1667. This lady was the widow of
Giovanni Giacomo Capra, who had committed
suicide in the Piazza S. Agata, Cremona, three
years previously, and was Stradivari's senior by
a few years. After the union Stradivari and
his wife settled in a house known as the Casa
del Pescatore, which was situated in his wife's
parish of S. Matteo ; and a year after the
marriage the Cremona census reports record
that a daughter, christened Giulia Maria, had
been born to them. Until 1680 Stradivari
continued to live at the Casa del Pescatore,
where his family was increased by the birth
of a second daughter, Oatterina, born March
25, 1674 (died June 17, 1748), and four sons :
Francesco, born Feb. 6, 1670—who only lived
a week ; Francesco, born Feb. 1, 1671 (died
May 11, 1743) ; Alessandro, born May 25, 1677
(died June 26, 1732) ;
Omobono, born Nov. 14,
1679 (died June 8, 1742). The year following
the birth of Omobono Stradivari and his family
removed to the house he had purchased in the
Piazza San Domenico of a Cremonese family
named Picenardi. According to the deed of sale,
first brought to light by Signer Lombardini
(^Antonio Stradivari e la celebre seuola Cremonese,
1872), and now preserved in the National
Archives of Cremona, Stradivari paid 7000
imperial lires (about £840) for his new home.
2000 lire of this amount he paid in cash, 4990
he agreed to pay within four years, and the
balance of ten lire was foregone by the vendors
provided he paid the canons of the Cathedral
the yearly tithe of six imperial sols. Until his
death Stradivari resided in this house, known
in his day as No. 2 Piazza San Domenico, but
since 1870 as No. 1 Piazza Roma, and for nine
years after his demise the remaining members
of his family lived there. In 1746 it was let
to Stradivari's pupil, Carlo Bergonzi, who occupied
the house until 1758. In the. following
year it was tenanted by Giacomo Caraffe, and
until 1777 by Giuseppe Palearr and others ;
but in that year Stradivari's grandson, named
Antonio after him, sold the house to Signer
Giovanni Ancina. During these years the
building escaped alteration, but in 1888 the
proprietor of the adjoining ca,ffi purchased it
and carried out such extensive alterations that
little of the original form of the structure now
remains.
Eighteen years of domestic tranquillity followed
the establishment of the Stradivari family
—which included Susanna Capra, his wife's only
daughter by her first husband—in their new
abode, until May 25, 1698, when a break was
caused in the home-circle by the death of the