The Three Parents of the Violin

The history of the violin is one full of examination and documentation, and yet speculation as to it’s true ancestry remains at the forefront of research. While it can certainly be said that the violin was derived from multiple instruments, this paper seeks to answer the question of which instruments exhibit essential characteristics and should be considered as the violin’s direct ancestors. Theories concerning the violin’s family tree abound, such as the bow theory and the sound chest theory which each attempt to trace the ancestry of the violin down through dozens of instruments, focusing on one critical, structural element. However, research shows that there is a contrasting approach regarding how the violin’s parentage should be determined. It will be posited that the more appropriate approach would be to view the violin as a combination of the three instruments directly preceding it. This paper seeks to examine and present these three instruments, and to show how each instrument contributes multiple elements that led to the modern-day violin. Rather than trying to trace the violin back to a single instrument, the ancestry of the violin should instead be seen as taking elements from multiple instruments, culminating in a combination of three direct precursors, namely the rebec, lira da braccio, and viola da braccio. Research for this paper was accomplished through the study of historical documentations on the history of the violin