The answer is we probably know who really did make the first true violin. His name was Andrea Amati, and he lived in the northern Italian city of Cremona in the 15th century. The first violin we have made by Andrea Amati even has a date - 1465! It's thought that A. Amati's first violins were made about 10 to 30 years before that.
But the story of how the violin, viola, and cello were developed into their characteristic forms by Amati begins much earlier - in ancient times, when people first discovered that a string, made of animal gut (intestine), silk string, or metal wire could produce a sound when vibrating.
Of course, this important discovery - like that of the wheel - was not recorded for historical purposes, and so we can never know for sure when that was, or who discovered it. However, certainly soon after that, people as amazed as you probably were yourself as a child when you realized a rubber band could change pitch when stretched between your fingers, began searching for a way to harness the power of the string, and to control and understand the potential of the sound.
The first logical step was to look for a way to secure both ends of the string (which if this discovery came after hearing the hunter's bow, it was pretty obvious!), and then to amplify the sound somehow. Thus, the harp was the earliest form of string instrument. There is actually evidence of early harps as far back as 15,000 BC on cave paintings in France!
The first more developed instrument we know of that had strings was the lyre, a type of harp played by King David in the Bible. The earliest historical knowledge we have of this instrument comes from the ancient Sumerians in the city of Ur, in now modern Iraq. An ancient lyre from Ur found in 1927 was dated to 2650 BC. This is the earliest actual specimen of a string instrument we have today! The lyre was then exported to just about all major cultures, including the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Chinese.
The first instruments with a sound box and ability to change pitches with the left hand. Ancient Egyptian paintings show also an instrument like a lute, which is an early guitar-type instrument. To project the sound, it had a gourd with skin stretched across it, and a neck where you could change the pitch of the 2 strings with your left hand fingers.
The Ancient Greeks also loved music and studied the musical properties of strings in a mathematic and scientific way. They also developed a highly sophisticated scale structure, which was later studied in the Renaissance period and adapted to become the modal scale structures we still use today. Sadly, none of their music survives as there was no musical notation at the time, so we can only guess at its sound.
String instruments, after the fall of the Roman Empire, went through a long period of stagnation as far as innovation goes until a very significant development towards the modern violin occurred in China around 800 AD. The erhu was the first instrument known to be played with a bow!
The erhu, which is still beloved in China today, has two strings (originally made of silk), and the bow is placed BETWEEN the strings while the erhu is rested on the player's knee. Another thing to note is the fact that there is no fingerboard on the erhu, and the strings are not pressed down to the wood when changing the pitch.
As you can see the instrument looks very similar to the Egyptian lute, having a skin stretching across a gourd or small wood box. In fact, the erhu was developed by the Chinese from a lute design imported from Mongol tribes, whose origin was probably from Egypt or the Middle East.
Interestingly, the next instrument to use a bow was developed a short time later - about 850 AD back in the Arabian middle East.
The rabab was smaller than the erhu with hide covering a hollowed out gourd. It did have a fingerboard on the neck (which was a lot shorter than the erhu), which did not have frets. It also had 2 strings, tuned in 5ths like the modern violin, and played resting on the knee similar to the erhu.
Unfortunately, because Islam forbade any depictions of real life in art, there are no drawings or paintings of the instrument. However, there are many detailed descriptions in writing.
In the early 1000's AD, Spain and the Arabic Moors were battling for control of the Iberian peninsula, and the Moors had pushed the Spanish to the north. This clash of cultures would also have a great influence on the culture of Spain, by affecting it with an eastern flavor.
The rabab was brought into Spain by the Moors and adopted and changed by the Spanish, producing the rebec, the next generation towards the violin. This is also the first instrument to be played in the way the violin would come to be played - under the chin or resting on the shoulder or chest. Rebecs are shown in Spanish art starting in 1000 AD played on the keee, and by 1050, they are shown around Europe played on the shoulder.
Besides the number of strings, the rebec was different from the rabab in that the body was made of wood, not a gourd, and there was a wood top with sound holes (usually "C" shaped). The strings were tuned like either the 3 bottom strings of the violin (G-D-A) or the 3 upper strings of the violin (D-A-E). The size was probably very close to the rabab, as was the fingerboard with no frets.
One interesting playing technique is that the rebec player would use his thumb to finger the lowest string as a kind of moving drone or bass note, while the other fingers played the melody on the top two strings!
At this same time, lutes, the precursor of guitars, were being developed in Spain and throughout Europe, also originally brought by the Moors back in the 8th or 9th century. Craftsmen who made lutes were called "luthiers", and that name now is given to anyone who makes string instruments, including the violin! Sometime between 1200 and 1400, a change occurred in some designs and a new instrument was born called the vihuela, which had a flat back instead of a rounded one.
Then around 1400, luthiers began adopting the use of a bow to vihuelas, creating an indentation in the body of the instrument, so that the bow could be used. Vihuelas were meant for the polyphonic writing (many solo lines being played at once) of the Renaissance period, and were not meant to be strummed like a modern guitar. Vihuelas could be either bowed or plucked.
The name vihuela became the name that was given to string instruments in general that had a flat back and ribs. When translated from Spanish into Italian, that name became "viola", so the origin of the word viola and violin directly comes from the precursor of the guitar!
In fact, the word Viola was used for many different instruments. The "Viola da mano" (Viola of the hand) was an instrument that began to look a lot like the guitar. "Viola da Gamba" (Viola of the Leg) was a bowed instrument that sat on the leg, played kind of like a cello would be. "Viola da Braccio" (Viola of the arm) was an instrument held on the shoulder like playing the Rebec.
The most noble of these instruments became the Viola da Gamba, which had frets and was tuned in 4ths, with a 3rd in the middle similar to the guitar. Today, these instruments are known as the "viol" family or "gambas". The one instrument from the viol family still in constant use today (outside of playing period instruments) is the Double Bass, or String Bass! You can see that the string bass has a different shaped body from the violin, viola, and cello, especially at the shoulders, meaning it actually comes from a different family.
The medieval fiddle, or "ville" was also a main influence on the violin. It also developed soon after the introduction of the rebec in about 1050. It has a shape more characteristic of the violin than the rebec, with a waisted body, looking like a ukulele or small guitar.
Both the word "vihuela" and the word "fiddle" evolved separately from the Latin word "vitula", which was used for a lute like instrument. Unlike the vihuela, the fiddle was definitely an instrument more likely to be used by the lower classes.
The instrument that was probably the closest ancestor to the violin was the lira da braccio. It appeared during the 14th century, and since it died out soon after the introduction of the violin, whereas the viola da gamba continued for two centuries after, it is considered the appropriate predecessor of the violin. Lira, or lyra was the word for stringed instruments since the early lyre. Lira da braccio simply was "Lyre of the Arm". It was bowed also, but it had frets, and it had 5 strings plus one or two drone strings which were off the fingerboard to the left. These strings plucked by the thumb in accompaniment to the melody.
Finally we're brought to the actual invention of the violin, which occurred probably around 1530. The most likely candidate for its inventor was Andrea Amati, who not only created its distinctive shape, but also invented the manner of construction which would be used until the golden age of violin making was over in the late 1700s.
Andrea Amati was born between 1505 and 1511 in the northern Italian city of Cremona. He was a lute, viola da gamba, and rebec maker before developing the finished form of the violin. His violins had 3 strings like the rebec initially. There are documents of two 3 string violins made between 1542 and 1546. The earliest 4 string violin on record by him is 1555. Apparently word of his violin making was getting around by 1560, because at that time King Charles IX of France commissioned an entire orchestra of violins, violas and cellos to be built by Andrea Amati. Charles was only about 10 at the time, but his mother was Catherine de Medicis, of the famous Medici family of Italian art patrons.
The earliest surviving example of a violin family instrument we have made by Andrea Amati or anyone else is a cello, which originally was created with only 3 strings. Many people believe this instrument was constructed as early as 1536, and then painted in 1560 to be included with the instruments for Charles IX. It apparently was slightly wider than it is today, and had a small piece in the middle cut out in 1801 to conform it to usual modern dimensions.
The earliest violin we have is dated 1564, which was part of the set of instruments he sent to Charles IX. Unfortunately, very few of Andrea Amati's instruments survive, as the largest part of his known output was sent to Charles IX, and during the French Revolution, most of these instruments were stolen, lost, or destroyed.
Andrea Amati's sons continued his work, and he started one of the greatest dynasties of violin making families. Others also continued his work, including Gaspar da Salo, the Guarneri family, and Stradivarius.
Follow the development and history of violin making from Andrea Amati to the present day.
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