FINALMENTE ARRIVA IL MESSIA

[Arca]

Si effettivamente mi è capitato di poter fare delle foto in musei pubblici, sono un appassionato (non mi prendete in giro anche voi) di Hieronymus Bosch, pittore quanto meno "anomalo" vissuto tra il 1400 / 1500 e a Venezia mi è stato concesso di fare foto senza flash, il museo era statale.
Boh forse si pensa di guadagnare di più vendendo le foto e poster venduti dal museo, è sicuramente è così.
Se vediamo il costo dell'ultimo libro sulle forme di Stradivari.. 140 euro!
Per 140 euro voglio che l'autore me lo legga tutte le sere mentre sono a letto, e che nel frattempo mi mescoli la colla nel mantraccio.

[davidesora]

Ne abbiamo parlato tempo fa in occasione della modifica della norma che ora permette le riprese fotografiche nei musei italiani. Davide si informò e gli fu risposto che il museo del violino non è pubblico.

Già, dimenticavo che ora almeno nei musei pubblici è permesso....

[alajhon]

Hello everyone!

I am building a violin based on the poster Strad of this model (Messiah), something that caught my attention is the height of the plates. It has 13.8 mm of top plate and 15.4 mm of back plate. The top plate is lower than the back plate, I have usually seen the opposite in other models, what effect can this feature have on the tonality of the violin?
Sorry if I posted this message in the wrong post.
Thank you.
Alan Jhones - Sao Paulo Brazil

[claudio]

Hi Alajhon,
where come from the dimensions you reported of 13.8 and 15.4mm?

[alajhon]

Hi Claudio!
The arching heigth to belly is 13.8 mm, and the arching heigth to back plate is 15.4 mm. I found these measurements strange, I always saw the opposite, the belly being higher than the back plate;
Alan Jhones

[claudio]

Where come from these measurements? from the Ashmolean Museum, The Strad posters, or?

[alajhon]

The measurements were taken from the poster of The Strad, follow a part of the table of measures, a friend of mine studies in Cremona and went to visit the violin in the museum this week, and informed me that really the top is lower than the back plate.

https://i.imgsafe.org/4ba31078a4.jpg

[claudio]

You have two choices, if your purpose is to make an exact copy of the Messia, you must adopt the real measurements. But if you are making a violin ìnspired to the Messia, you are free to follow those measurements or not.

Regarding the influence on the tone, having a belly lower than the back produces a more dark tone. Born in mind that these "inverted" measurements are consequence of the string tension through the time, so I cannot fully understand why the Messia have these measurements although it is an almost unused instrument.

[alajhon]

Claudio, another detail is the low thickness of the belly, reaching 2.1 mm in the acoustic center. I do not know if to compensate the belly with low arching. I think I will change the heights of belly arching and back arching.

[davidesora]

Hi Claudio!
The arching heigth to belly is 13.8 mm, and the arching heigth to back plate is 15.4 mm. I found these measurements strange, I always saw the opposite, the belly being higher than the back plate;
Alan Jhones

Not so strange, the Medici 1716 has 14.5 mm back and 13.4 mm top, the Cremonese 1715 has 16.1 back and 15.4 top, does not seem that there is a constant in this regard in the work of Stradivari.
But you could also find standard measures of Sacconi if you carefully look for, for example the Parke 1711 with 14.8 mm back and 15.5 mm top.
It is difficult to state an acoustic effect only considering the heights of arches, although what Claudio says I think goes in the right direction.
The problem with the Messiah is that we never heard how it perform acoustically, so on what basis its arches would be copied?

[alajhon]

Hi Davide! I'm in this dilemma, keep the original Strad poster measures or change the arching to the measures I'm accustomed to using. As we do not have information of its acoustic performance, hangs this doubt ...
I'm thinking of doing as the poster and paying to see, or rather hear

[davidesora]

Hi Davide! I'm in this dilemma, keep the original Strad poster measures or change the arching to the measures I'm accustomed to using. As we do not have information of its acoustic performance, hangs this doubt ...
I'm thinking of doing as the poster and paying to see, or rather hear

You can do it safely, it would not be the first violin to work well with low archings, there are illustrious predecessors both in Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù violins.
I willingly leave to you this challenge, currently I am more intrigued by high archings.