reason, that the same forms
have survived from remote periods. Coming to the mediaeval bow we
appear to tread on safer ground; bows are depicted in miniatures,
manuscripts, paintings, etc., from the eight and ninth centuries
onwards, and in nearly every case we can determine the date of the
production and frequently its author. So far nothing could be more
satisfactory, but as I have said above, there are very few examples
that impress one as being accurate representations.

Proceeding to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I am further
frustrated in my attempt to elucidate the obscure passages in the
bow's history by a reversal of those conditions. I can now lay before
my readers drawings and photographs of bows the accuracy of which I
can guarantee, but placing them in perfect chronology is,
unfortunately, little more than guess work. Such was the modesty of
their makers that the early bows were all sent into the world
nameless. Many of them are marvels of workmanship, and, though
utterly unscientific in construction and unfit for the requirements
of modern violinists, they are for the most part exquisite works of
art upon which no pains have been spared.

Some of the fluting and other ornamentation is little short of
marvellous in point of design and finish.

To a casual writer like myself the mass of conflicting detail found
on examining ancient bows and the records of their use is extremely
disconcerting. The practised scientist, however, surveys such things
with calmness, for his trained eye immediately selects those details
that support the theories he wishes to promulgate, and the rest are
quietly consigned to oblivion.

In this way the most charmingly satisfactory results are obtained.
Thus Fetis, in his article on Tourte, gives a brief outline of the
history of the bow, illustrating the same with what purports to be a
"_Display of the successive ameliorations of the bow in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries._" This consists of a series of
drawings of bows ranging from Mersenne in 1620 through those used by
Kircher, Castrovillari, Bassani, Corelli, Tartini and Cramer to that
of Viotti in 1790. Herein is shown how the arched bow gave place to
the straight: and this in its turn to that having the inward curve
known as the "spring" or _cambre_. The succession is perfect, and it
is only the final drawing of the series (the Viotti bow of 1790) that
shows this _cambre_.

Now, in the collection of