This famous maker of Violins was born at Cremona in the year 1687, and died in or about 1745. The house of Giuseppe Guarneri is said to have been No. 5, Piazza S. Domenico, now called Piazza Roma. An extract from the register proves that Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri, legitimate son of Giovanni Battista Guarneri and Angela Maria Locadelli, was born at Cremona on June 8, 1683, and was baptized on the 11th of the same month, in the parish of San Donato, at the chapel-of-ease of the cathedral. This extract which was supposed to refer to the subject of this notice relates to a child who died in infancy, and it is now satisfactorily settled that Joseph del Gesu first saw the light on October 16, 1687. The date of death is merely conjectural, and unsupported by definite evidence. The father of Guarneri del Gesu, namely Gio. Battista, was the son of Bernardo, a cousin of Andrea Guarneri. He does not appear to have had any knowledge of the manufacture of stringed instruments, and was thus an exception to the majority of a family which numbered many prominent makers within it. It has been asserted on all sides that Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu was a pupil of Antonio Stradivari, but in every case this statement has been made without a shadow of proof, either from recorded fact or analogy. That this bare assertion should have so long remained unchallenged is a matter of some surprise to the writer of these pages, who fails to see anything in common between the two makers, with the exception of the varnish, and perhaps the high finish, as apparent in the works of the second epoch of Guarneri. The following remarks on this point are the result of the most careful consideration of the subject, and may serve to assist the reader in forming an opinion. Had Giuseppe Guarneri received his early instructions from Stradivari, should we not expect his instruments to bear the character of the master in some slight degree? The most diligent student will, however, fail to discover an early work of Guarneri bearing any likeness whatever to the work of Stradivari. Among the instruments of the second epoch may be found a few that show some gleam of the desired similarity in respect of high finish; but it would be to the earliest efforts of Guarneri that we should turn in our endeavour to discover the source of his first instructions. The faint gleam of similarity, then, attaching to the instruments of the second epoch, be it understood, is in no way sufficient to demonstrate that Guarneri was a pupil of Stradivari. Upon turning to other makers, what will be the result if we judge them by the criterion above mentioned? Bergonzi, Guadagnini, Gagliano, and others, whose names it is unnecessary to mention, leave upon their earliest efforts the indelible stamp of the master who first instructed them. To suppose that Guarneri del Gesu formed the single exception to the likeness between the work of master and pupil, is scarcely sufficient to satisfy the inquiry.