The sound-hole is long and pointed, and admirably set in the instrument. The scroll is primitive, but boldly cut, and clearly marks an onward step from the somewhat crude production of Gasparo, the back of which is not grooved, or but slightly. Maggini's varnish is of brown or yellow colour, and of good quality. The instruments covered with the brown varnish are often without any device on their backs, and seldom have two rows of purfling. De Beriot, the famous Belgian Violinist, used one of Maggini's Violins, and, in consequence, their value was much increased.[12] [Footnote 12: The genuine labels are undated, as in the case of his master, Gasparo da Salo.] MALER, Laux, Bologna, about 1450. Maker of Lutes. Maler appears to have been regarded by Lutinists as the Stradivari of Lutes. Thomas Mace informs us in his "Musick's Monument," 1676, they were sold for as much as one hundred pounds each, though often "pittiful, old, batter'd, crack'd things." He tells us he has "often seen Lutes of three or four pounds price far more illustrious and taking to a common eye." History repeats itself at every turn. The uneducated eye of to-day is equally apt to regard a Mirecourt or Bavarian copy with as much favour as a genuine Cremona. Mace proceeds to instruct the "common eye." "First, know that an old Lute is better than a new one." Thus also with Viols: "We chiefly value old instruments before new; for by experience they are found to be far the best." "The pores of the wood have a more and free liberty to move, stir, or secretly vibrate, by which means the air--which is the life of all things, both animate and inanimate--has a more free and easie recourse to pass and repass." This explanation accounts, in part at least, for the superiority of old over new instruments, and in language delightfully quaint and simple. MANTEGAZZA, Pietro Giovanni, Milan. Pietro Giov Fratelli Mantegazza nella Contrada di Santa Margarita in Milano al Segno dell' Angelo 17-- Petrus Joes. Fratresq Mantegatia Mediolani in Via S. Margarite anno 1760. Petrus Joannes Mantegatia, fecit Mediolani in Via S. Margaritae 1784.