The name of this amateur must ever be held in grateful remembrance for his loving care of the Italian masterpieces. It is to such men that we owe the preservation of nearly all the finest existing instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries. Endowed with great wealth and rare judgment, he formed an unrivalled representative collection of the works of the great masters of the craft, and by his careful researches amassed an amount of information which might well have served as an invaluable tradition of an apparently vanishing art. To such a man the acquisition of ten undoubted specimens of the incomparable Stradivari must have been one of the greatest events of his life. The Count’s memorandum informs us that his purchase included two masterpieces of the great maker; one of large size, with a label bearing date 1716, and another of medium size, dated 1736, and bearing on the label the inscription “d’anni 92,” in Stradivari’s own hand; both quite new and untouched, and rare models for a good maker. The former instrument, with which we are now concerned, is described in the memorandum as of exquisite workmanship, and perfect quality of wood, with a tone of great evenness and power. This remarkable violin, received at first hand from the very workshop of its great maker, remained carefully preserved in the Count Salabue’s collection at Milan, until after his death. It is a noteworthy instance of the fascination exercised by a perfect violin, that no one of the successive owners of this splendid instrument, from Stradivari himself downwards, would part with it until called away by death. After the death of the Count, his heirs in 1827 sold the Stradivari of 1716 to a man whose career merits a passing notice, on account of the important part he played in rescuing innumerable works of the greatest violin makers from obscurity and, perhaps, destruction. [Illustration: Si’ grande fu poi il numero de’ Violini principalmente che fabbricò esso Antonio Stradivari che dopo esserne sparsi per tutta l’Europa nè lasciò al suo decesso. N^o. 91, entra nel 1775. ve ne erano soltanto che dieci che amperò dal figlio Paolo il sudd^{to}. Conte Cozio assieme a due Capi d’opera di suo figlio Francesco. Nella più volte citata Collezione del Sig^r. Conte Cozio si ritiene due de’ principali Capi d’opera di esso celeberrimo Antonio Stradivari, cioè quello dì forma più grande, e bellissimo di lavori e di legno, e di perfetta qualità, egualianza di voce, e di gran forza portante nel Viglietto contropostovi 1716., e’l altro sebbene di forma mezzana portami nel biglietto l’anno 1736., ed al difratto l’indicazione S’ anni 92. scritta dallo stesso Stradivari, che’ assai si approssima alla perfezione, ed alla forza di voce del precedente, ed entrambi affatto nuovi, ad intatti per cui’ possono servire di scielti modelli ad un buon fabbricatore d’istromenti. ] TRANSLATION.