The Messiah Strad Controversy

It is not the editorial position of Soundpost Online that the Messiah violin is not an authentic Stradivari violin. But questions about the provenance of the Messiah have caused us to research the question to try to ascertain the extent to which the provenance historically ascribed to the violin is likely to be accurate. S.H., Ed.

Over the past few years, Jim Warren and I have been collaborating on a "sifting operation" through the papers of Count Cozio di Salabue. To our knowledge, no one has ever undertaken (or published, at least) a methodical study of these documents in their totality. Our motive for initiating this task was to glean as much as possible about the Count’s role in employing G. B. Guadagnini and, no less importantly, the Count’s dealings in Guadagnini’s violins and his biographies of the violin maker.

With as many papers as do exist, it is difficult if not impossible to compartmentalize Cozio’s far flung activities. Nevertheless, various interlocking themes can be traced. One is the Count’s acquisition and disposal of his Stradivari violins.

Below we offer some clarifications on this particular subject. Given the recent renewed interest in the "Messiah" violin, and its traditional provenance, some readers might find it useful to have a general introduction to the record of Cozio’s dealings in Stradivari violins.

Between 1773 and 1775, Count Cozio acquired perhaps twelve or thirteen Stradivari violins from Cremonese vendors. These transactions, as discussed in the book on
G. B. Guadagnini that Jim Warren and I recently put out,
were to all appearances accomplished through the agency of Guadagnini himself. At least ten, and perhaps as many as twelve, of the Stradivari violins Cozio bought were from the private collection of Antonio Stradivari’s youngest son,
Paolo. The sales prices are unrecorded, and if the total number of instruments is a bit vague, we are on firm ground in stating that Cozio’s purchases included two violins made by (and with the label of) Francesco Stradivari.

Once in Turin, these Stradivari were all more or less brought into "modern" playing condition by G. B. Guadagnini. From 1776 onwards, some were offered for sale in Turin, and a handful in Milan, but none, to our knowledge, was sold. In later years, i.e. the 1780’s and 1790’s some specimens were lent to Cozio’s relatives or fellow nobleman-dilettantes.

After the second Napoleonic invasion of Italy in 1800, Count Cozio (like others of his social class) was stripped of his noble title and placed in a higher tax bracket. Financial necessity is perhaps the best explanation for why the Count entered the marketplace and sold some of his Stradivari violins to persons residing in Milan. In all, from 1801-1817 he sold nine violins, eight examples labeled Antonio Stradivari and one by Francesco with a false Antonio label. One violin we are unable to catalogue any more precisely than to say it once bore a label of Nicolò Amati, but the Count believed it to be a Stradivari with a later front.

There are four important violins that still belonged to Cozio
in 1816-1823, when they were last inventoried:

1) A Francesco Stradivari violin, originally labeled 1742. Afterwards it was in Salabue, but nothing more is known of when it left Cozio’s possession. Towards the end of the 19th century Alfred Hill correctly intuited that the label (then still in the possession of Cozio’s heirs) belonged to the violin now known as the "Salabue" Francesco Stradivari. The notes of the Count himself leave very little doubt that Alfred Hill put the correct label back in the violin.

2) One of Cozio’s favorite instruments to play on was a yellowish colored Stradivari violin dated 1736, last inventoried in about 1816… The circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that this violin is the one now
known as the "Muntz."

3) A small violin, dated 1736, which before becoming Cozio’s property had belonged to either to the Cavalier Boroni, a noted Cremonese painter, or perhaps Boroni’s son, a violinist. Mentioned in numerous inventories, it is also discussed in a letter dated 1844, four years after the Count’s death. There is little doubt that this violin is the "Belle Skinner" now kept at Yale University.

4) Cozio’s Stradivari violin of 1716, which according to lore is the same violin now in the Ashmoleum Museum, Oxford, is discussed or mentioned in about 13 of the 100 separate manuscripts (MS) now kept in the Biblioteca Statale in Cremona. Below we have assembled excerpts with the descriptions of Cozio’s 1716 violin, which were all drafted by the Count himself.

a)  MS 42, an inventory dated 8 April 1801, Milan:

"Printed label … with seal … of the year 1716 (the 716 is manuscript). Round voice, strong, equal and very beautiful. Details: larger form. Intact. Strong red varnish, fine turning to pastel. Very fine work in all the parts with very beautiful purfling. Table and back with medium arching well turned at the edges. Table of straight grain and gradated of medium width with a patch for reinforcement above the soundpost placed there by the maker. Two piece back. Brilliant, wide grain and not joined with the grain, and the grain turning upwards a little. Button 2/3 of a circle = ribs and neck of equal beautiful wood. The neck was set back and the fingerboard replaced, and a large square piece above the soundpost for  a crack that is invisible, and perhaps for necessary reinforcement by G. B. Guadagnini. Beautiful scroll and profiled in black as usual. Worth at least one hundred and fifty zecchini."

b) MS 41 (without date, but probably precedes 41, though it was updated):
 
"Two piece back, wide grain and the most lively one could see, the button small and more than a semicircle, the ribs and neck all of the same wood, the chamfer of the scroll black, rather flat workmanship and of the greatest possible finesse, with a patch above the soundpost under the bridge for strength [that] was put by the maker during the construction of the violin itself. With label … of the year 1716… [with seal…] Most beautiful and intact … The first in evenness and beauty  (in 1823 placed in the principal collection)."

c) MS 46:
On 16 January 1808 in Milan, an

"Inventory of the instruments in the high walnut wardrobe, in the cabinet"
was prepared, including a

"Violin by Antonio Stradivari of 1716, large form, in sound condition except for two pins in the table, very fine. The small button of 3/4 of a circle. [Per?] modello varnish more red, two piece back, wide lively grain, beautiful ribs, ribs equal, joined a the bottom, beautiful neck and table foreign [wood], wide grain, with a very strong and good voice, estimated at 150 Louis. With pegs and tailpiece [?] of ebony with mother of pearl, believed to be the G form with the pins in the back and one in the purfling."

d) MS 47 29 May 1816, Milan:

"Form (P. G.) measurements of my most beautiful and largest violin by Antonio Stradivari of 1716, red varnish, taken with the compass including the purfling…"

Cozio then gives the measurements of the violin, using his own particular system, a system we have not, however, been able to decode with convincing results.

"The back in two pieces, very beautiful wide grain from top to bottom."

More measurements are given

e) MS 82, 30 June 1816:

In a 
"list of the collection of bowed instruments of the principal celebrated Cremonese makers…"
 
we read of
"… another [violin] of the larger form and a masterpiece of Antonio Stradivari, Cremonese, another pupil of said Nicolo Amati, of the year 1716. Very fine work, and of a quality and extraordinary power of the voice, two-piece back of maple of wide grain, this also intact, [worth] three hundred ongari, very beautiful red varnish."

f ) MS 81:
In one of the latest notes made by Cozio himself, we read of:

"… the most beautiful, sound and large [violin] by Antonio Stradivari, the most perfect"
 
which was for sale for two hundred zecchini.

In the middle of the document a date of 

"11 October 1834, Casale," 

is written in the Count’s hand. The format of this one page document, with the date in the middle and not at the head of the page, leaves some room for interpretation as to all of its implications. However, the margins of this page contain numerous currency conversions in the hand of Matilde, Count Cozio’s daughter, who also wrote the word "sold" written next to the entry of the 1716 violin.

At the very least, MS 81 casts considerable doubt on the notion that the Count sold the violin in 1827 to Luigi Tarisio. Rather, the dating of the page and the fact that the Count’s daughter added her own comments, would strongly suggest that the violin was sold after October 1834 or perhaps near (or after) the end of Cozio’s life in December 1840. The purchaser of the violin is not mentioned, even though other documents in the Count’s archive show that Tarisio’s non-Stradivari purchases between 1839 and 1841 were quite extensive. Thus, there is nothing amongst Cozio’s existing papers which enable the historian to make a connection between his 1716 Stradivari and the violin in Oxford. #

                                                                   Duane Rosengard

In Summation:

With the help of Duane Rosengard we can now compare Count Cozio's description of his 1716 violin, with the description of the Messiah given in the monograph by W. E. Hill and Sons first published in 1891 and with a visual description of the violin in Oxford as it appears today. Excerpted comparisons:

1.) from MS 42, [Strong red varnish, fine turning to pastel.]

     The Hill's say "It [the varnish] has not perhaps the luscious richness of some of Stradivari's instruments, and it appears drier and less thickly laid on than usual in violins of the same period."

2.) [Very fine work in all the parts with very beautiful purfling.]

     The violin in Oxford does not have purfling representative of  the finest work from Stradivari.             

3.) [Table of straight grain and gradated of medium width with a patch for reinforcement above the soundpost placed there by the maker.] 

     No such patch mentioned by the Hills or apparent today.

 4.) [Two piece back. Brilliant, wide grain and not joined with the grain, and the grain turning upwards a little.] 

     If we read Cozio literally as we would read a violin description today it would suggest that the flame in the back of the violin is ascending from the center joint. The wood in the back of the violin in Oxford descends from the center joint.

 5.) [ribs and neck of equal beautiful wood.]

     The Hill's say, "The sides and head, as well as the neck, which is original, are perhaps a little plain in comparison with the back" The Hill's description is consistent with my own observations.

 6.) from  MS 41: [with a patch above the soundpost under the bridge for strength [that] was put by the maker during the construction of
      the violin itself.]

     As stated above, no such defect is mentioned by the Hills who had the violin apart.

The reader might conclude that Cozio was sloppy in his descriptions, but in fact numerous examples can be cited where Cozio was extremely accurate and detailed in his descriptions of instruments. This leaves the historically accepted provenance open to further question and examination.  #

Stefan Hersh

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