It was among such surroundings that the mighty Stradivarius learnt his art in the workshops of Nicolo Amati, grandson of Andrea Amati, who made “The King.” The _atelier_ of this maker was a very nest of talent in the middle of the seventeenth century, for Nicolo Amati’s renown attracted all the most enthusiastic young aspirants of the art. It is easy to imagine the grand spirit of emulation, and even rivalry, which must have existed within the four walls of Amati’s premises in Cremona. An unrivalled master of his art at the time, bestowing care and thought on every part of his work, there is no doubt that he did much towards advancing the construction of the violoncello in the matter of experimenting with thicknesses, but he did not alter the dimensions of the violoncello which was at that time about 31 inches in length, if not longer. The majority of Amati violoncellos have been cut down, so that it is difficult to judge of their original size, but it is probable that they originally measured over 31 inches in length. The paramount influence of the Church in musical matters was responsible for the large dimensions of the violoncello at that date; it was looked upon as useful to reinforce the double-bass, or “bass-violin” as it was then called, for the big viols had already gone out of use in Italy in the middle of the seventeenth century. In “The Familiar Letters of Abraham Hill” (London 1767), his brother, Thomas, writing to him from Lucca, 1st October 1657, speaking of the instrumental music he had heard there, says that it “is much better than I expected. The organ and violin they are masters of, but the bass-viol they have not at all in use, and, to supply its place, they have the bass-violin.” According to Maugars in his “Reponse fait à un curieux ...” (1639) the viol was going out of use in Italy, quite twenty years before the above date. “Regarding the viol,” he remarks, “there is no one in Italy now who excels on that instrument, and even in Rome it is still little cultivated: I am very astonished at this, seeing that they had formerly one Horatio de Parme, who was a marvellous player.” The writer of these lines was himself a magnificent performer on the viola da gamba. He visited Rome, where he found the gamba, the theorbo, and harpsichord the most fashionable instruments, and, in spite of the numerous violins and violoncellos being made by Nicolas Amati in his busy workshops in Cremona, these latter were considered to be what Lord Chesterfield would have called “ungentlemanly instruments.” If by chance any enthusiastic amateur was rash enough to adopt the violin, he was careful to hide the fact from his friends for fear of being thought disreputable. This antipathy to the fiddle was just as keenly felt in England, when the encroachment of the new-fangled four-stringed instruments began to endanger the position of the viol. Anthony Wood, writing in 1653 at Oxford, says in reference to this: “Before the