The soft-toned viol had deeply indented sides to permit a free use of the bow, was mostly supplied with frets like a guitar, and had usually from five to seven strings.  Its different sizes corresponded with the soprano, contralto, tenor and bass of the human voice.  An extremely interesting treble viol much in vogue in the eighteenth century was the viola d’amore, with fourteen strings, the seven of gut and silver being supplemented by seven sympathetic wire strings running below the finger-board and tuned in unison with the bowstrings, vibrating harmoniously while these are played.  A remarkably well preserved specimen of this instrument, made by Eberle of Prague, in 1733, and superbly carved on pegbox and scroll, is in the fine private violin collection of Mr. D. H. Carr, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  It is one of the few genuine viola d’amores extant.  The owner says of it:  “The tone is simply wonderful, mellow, pure and strong, and of that exquisite harmony that comes from the throne of Nature.  I know of no other genuine viola d’amore, and it compares with the modern copies I have seen as a Raphael or a Rubens with some cheap lithograph.”  These modern copies are the result of recent efforts to revive the use of this fascinating instrument.  A barytone of a kindred nature was the viola di bordone or drone viol, so called because there was a suggestion of the buzzing of drone-flies, or humble bees, in the tones of its sympathetic strings, which often numbered as many as twenty-four.  These violas recall the Hardanger peasant fiddle of Norway, of unknown origin and antiquity, whose delicate metallic under strings quaver tremulously and mysteriously when the bow sets in motion the main strings.

At one time every family of distinction in Britain deemed a chest of viols, consisting for the most part of two trebles, two altos, a barytone and a bass, as indispensable to the household as the piano is thought to-day.  It was made effective in accompanying the madrigal, that delightful flower of the Elizabethan age.  Singers not always being available for all of the difficult voice parts viols of the same compass supplied the lack.  It was but a step for masters of music to compose pieces marked “to be sung or played,” thus contributing to the forces that were lifting instrumental music above mere accompaniment for song or dance.

When musicians make demands musical instrument makers are ever ready to meet them, and the viol steadily improved.  One who contributed to its progress was Gasper Duiffoprugcar (1514-1572) a luthier and mosaic inlayer, known in the Tyrol, in Bologna, Paris and Lyons.  The belief that he originated the violin rests chiefly on the elaborately ornamented forgeries bearing his name, the work of French imitators from 1800 to 1840.  There is an etching, supposed to be a copy of a portrait of himself carved on one of his viols with this motto:  “I lived in the wood until I was slain by the relentless axe.  In life I was silent, but in death my melody is exquisite.”