The Beginnings of the Vioin Bow: Distinctive Capped Speciments for a New Instrument

The 16th century can be considered as the darkest period in the history of the violin bow. All the sources agree that we don’t have surviving specimens for that period, mainly due to the supposed poor quality they treasured, which led to their being discarded after the Tourte model standardization at the end of the 18th century. This belief has caused a lack of interest in his study, relegating the period almost to oblivion within the few treaties that have been devoted to trace their evolution, and delimiting the data that we can obtain from the vague analyzes performed on iconographic material. The research presented here, part of the study of the main instrument catalogues collections available, that has allowed us to find surviving Renaissance models, and with the help of an exhaustive study of the iconographic material we have, we can verify its quality, characteristics, repercussion and background, concluding that the 16th century hooded model, could be the first specific specimen of the violin's bow.