According to Eitner’s previously mentioned assertion, it appears that the last-named instrument was at first called “Violoncino,” and a little while after “Violoncello.” The Italian affixes “ino” and “ello” have a diminutive meaning, and therefore both names have an identical signification. As violino is the diminutive of viola, violoncino and violoncello are the diminutives of “violone.” The tenor of our day, which also at that time sprang from the alto or tenor viola, after the pattern of the violin, received the name of Viola da braccio, which means “arm viola.” Besides the Viola da braccio there was also a “Viola da Spalla,” which was not placed beneath the chin, but rested on the left shoulder. Concerning this bass instrument Mattheson remarks: “The Viola da spalla, or shoulder-viola, has a particularly grand effect in accompaniment from its penetrating and pure tone. A bass can never be more distinctly and clearly brought out than by this instrument. It is fastened by a ribbon to the chest and thrown over the right shoulder, but has nothing which can stop or prevent in the smallest degree its resonance.” To return to the violoncello. It offered the player two very important advantages over the gamba. First, the finger technique was wholly unlimited because the fingerboard had no frets, which, in regard to runs and cadences, as well as change of positions, opposed a substantial hindrance to the gamba player. Then the player on the violoncello could obtain more tone than on the gamba, by drawing the bow more forcibly over a single string. The upper edge of the bridge of the gamba, over which the strings passed, was so flatly cut for harmonised or part-playing that it was necessary to avoid a strong tone, lest the neighbouring strings should be thereby sympathetically affected. But the bridge of the cello, on the contrary, was of a more convex form, whereby playing in parts was indeed precluded. As is known, on the cello as on the violin, only double stops and chords are possible, and the last only broken up. In this manner the violoncello was used formerly at the performances of operas and oratorios as solo accompaniment of recitatives, for which of course it was requisite that the player should have a thorough knowledge of music theoretically, as he had to execute at sight figured basses. Corrette gives already in his violoncello tutor (1741) instructions for accompanying recitative. These directions are, however, by no means exhaustive; such are first found in the cello tutor compiled for the Paris Conservatoire by De Baillot, Levasseur, Catel, and Baudiot, which appeared in print in 1804. Therein it is said: