I'm looking for a copy of this drawing

[MikeC]

I screen captured this fuzzy image from a youtube video.  I would like to find a high resolution image suitable for printing out and framing.  Does anyone out there know anything about this?  Where is it located?  Are there any good detailed images of it online somewhere? 

I think it's from Antonio Bagatella but the online book from Bagatella only has a partial drawing of it.  

 

[uncle duke]

using some antique paper, a violin plate detached for tracing, some circles and a vertical line with 72 marks i think one could fake this one easily.  i see more than 72 section/parts on this one.

the lower corners on this example are what makes me think this one is just a made up sketch - the outer corner arcs are supposed to be scribed from the inside of the plan, not from the outside.

it doesn't discount the fact that you still want one though.

[Ed Shillitoe]

You can find a similar diagram in the Heron Allen book on page 137 or in the Otto book in Fig 4.  Not exactly the same but at least on a clear white background which might allow a better scan.

Ed

[MikeC]

What is the Otto book?  I'm not familiar with that one.  I have a PDF of Heron Allen and saw the picture there but I'd like to find a copy of this original one.  I think the handwriting at the top right corner is Count Cozio.  So this would predate Heron Allen by a few years..    

[Ed Shillitoe]

I believe it was published in the 1820s in Germany.  A translation was published in English around 1900 and reprinted by William Reeves around 1975.  The full title in English is 'Treatise on the structure and preservation of the violin, by Jacob Augustus Otto'.    I have a copy of the Reeves reprint which I bought from Mr. Reeves.   The book doesn't seem to credit the origin of the picture as far as I can see, and its not exactly the same as your picture either. 

[MikeC]

Hi Ed, thanks for the title.  I'll look it up!  

 

[uncle duke]

  the plan works easiest when you use a 360 mm corpus.  so, using the 72 parts that are prescribed, you divide 360 by 72 to get a 5 mm answer.  that means that there will be a 5mm space between each of the 72 hash marks.

  nobody really wants a violin that big so the problem now is trying to get 72 evenly spaced hash marks using something in between the 4 and 5 mm measurement.  not easy to do all the way across the paper using mm's.

  so i went looking for what oncia and punta were about.  that's what was used back then for measurement but what i found was one section of italy would have a definition of oncia/punta while several hundred miles east, for example,  would have their own definition which appears present day to me to be different. 

one can design any length for corpus using this system - let's say there's a want for a 5/8th size fiddle.  one would have to know the pin to pin distance for the total length and then divide that length by 72 to get the mm spacing.

  i see the above example doesn't show any lettered horizontal lines.  you need them to make the otto plan work.  that is the reason that makes me think someone just simply laid down a violin plate and traced around it and then added their own flourishes to suit.

[catnip]

There many of these earlier books have been digitized.  Here the original book translated by Bishop

 

JacobOtto_Preservation_Restoration.pdf