The violin was born about 1500, even if it is thought to date back to the thirteenth century ,but there is no evidence that testifies it.        The violin is a descendant of the viola, which is the name of a whole family of instruments coming from the century deriving from the medieval "viella". The violin is one of the strings and it is the soprano of this family. The present instruments has got four tight strings on a resonance chamber whose wood and paint play a mayor part in the quality of the sound. The strings are stretched by a tail-piece and pegs which are fixed at the end of the handle and are used for tuning. The strings were made of gut, now they are built with nylon or other synthetic fibre, and the acute one (the e)with steel ;the different violin's timbres go from the "flageolet" to the "plucked". Another part the violin needs is the bow; it is finished with horse and no mare hair because they are weaker and they hold less.The pitch is used in order to keep the horse hair together.   The violin is a sole and monodic instrument, but using the double strings it can produce also a polyphonic play.  The most important lutemaker of all times is Antonio Stradivari, other important lukemaker families are Amati, Guarnieri and Guadagnini.   The most famous and important lukemakers in the world are those from Italy and the biggest school in the world is the Cremona's one.  Stradivari died when he was 54 years old and he built more than 1000 instruments. Now only 450 are left because many of them have been lost during the war and the earthquakes.