ather."
From this and subsequent correspondence we learn that Messrs. Anselmi
di Briata, being wholesale traders, were in a suitable position to act
as intermediaries in the purchase of Violins on behalf of Count Cozio.
Their business necessitated their visiting Cremona, and thus they
appear to have seen the Violin of Signor Boroni, and also another
belonging to a monk or friar named Father Ravizza, both of which were
subsequently bought, as seen by the following extracts from a letter
of Paolo Stradivari:--

"Cremona, July 10, 1776. We learn from Messrs. Dupuy of the receipt of
the seven giliati, which you have paid on our account.... As we have
already prepared everything, we shall therefore inform Father Ravizza
and Signor Boroni; I have, however, to mention that I did not think I
possessed so many things as I have found. It being according to what
has been promised, it cannot be discussed over again.... It will be a
very heavy case, on account of the quantity of patterns and tools, and
consequently it will be dangerous to put the Violins in the same
package." The writer refers to the two instruments before mentioned:
"I fear without care they will let it fall in unloading it, and the
Violins will be damaged; I inform you therefore of the fact.... You
must let me know how I have to send the case. If by land, through the
firm of Tabarini, of Piacenza, or to take the opportunity of sending
by the Po." In passing, it may be remarked that the distance between
Cremona and Casale by the river Po is about sixty miles. The later
correspondence makes known the fact of the precious freight having
been consigned to the firm of Anselmi di Briata by way of the Po, and
that it was entrusted to the care and charge of a barge-master named
Gobbi.

It is by no means uncommon to discover the memories of men kept green
in our minds from causes strangely curious and unexpected. Many seek
to render their names immortal by some act the nature of which would
seem to be imperishable, and chiefly fail of their object; whilst
others, obscure and unthought of, live on by accident. Imagine the
paints and brushes, the pencils and palettes, the easel and the
sketches of Raffaele having been given over to a Po barge-master, and
that chance had divulged his name. Would he not in these days of
microscopic biography have furnished work for the genealogist, and
been made the subject of numberless pictures? Hence it is that the
admirers of Stradivari