a vielle, an ancestor of the modern violin, in a 1330 fresco

Italian musical masters took the violin from fiddle to first chair

Strummed, plucked, or bowed, violins had been making music for centuries before Andrea Amati and Antonio Stradivari brought them to new heights in the 16th and 17th centuries.

A vielle, an ancestor of the modern violin, appears in a 1330 fresco. Museum of Navarra, Pamplona.
Photograph by Bridgeman/ACI
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