to his instruments for such evidence as we
require; and these, happily, give us a greater insight into his career
than would be readily imagined. I am not aware that any Violin of
Stradivari is known in which it is stated that he was a pupil of
Niccolo Amati, or that the assumption has been maintained on any other
grounds than the indisputable evidence furnished by the early
instruments of this great maker.[16] Never has affinity in the art of
Violin manufacture been more marked than that between Stradivari and
Niccolo Amati during the early life of the former. I have, in another
place, remarked upon the almost invariable similarity occurring
between the works of master and pupil, and have used this canon in
refutation of the doctrine that Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu was ever a
pupil of Antonio Stradivari. Lancetti states that the instruments of
Stradivari made in 1665, and others in 1666, bear the label of Niccolo
Amati, and instances one that was in the collection of Count Cozio, to
which Stradivari made a new belly, many years later, in his best
style. It is certain that instruments as described by Lancetti have
been recognised by intelligent connoisseurs as wholly the work of
Stradivari (in which case, as may be imagined, they have no longer
been allowed to sail under false colours, but have had their proper
certificate of birth attached to them). In other instances the
beautiful scroll of Stradivari has been recognised on the body of an
Amati, or the sound-hole has shown that it was cut by the hand of
Stradivari.

[Footnote 16: Upon reference to Lancetti's MSS., I find that he states
Stradivari used a label with the words "Nicolai Amati Alumnus," about
1666.]

Having met with a Violin by Stradivari (since the publication of the
first edition of this work) dated 1666, it would appear that he left
the workshop of his master at that time, or not later than the year of
his marriage in 1667. The extracts obtained by Canon Bazzi from the
parish registers, relative to the pupils of Niccolo Amati, help to
establish the correctness of this view. Stradivari must have been in
the workshop of his master between the years 1658 and 1666. We have no
information of the pupils of Amati from 1654 to 1665. In 1666 the name
of Giorgio Fraiser is given; consequently Stradivari must have left
previous to 1666 or early in that year, and prior to the registration.
Between the years 1666 and 1672 there is observable a marked change in
s