<P> The violin is often called a fiddle, either when used in a folk music context, or even in Classical music scenes, as an informal nickname for the instrument . The word "fiddle" means "stringed musical instrument, violin". The word "fiddle" was first used in English in the late 14th century . The word "fiddle" comes from "fedele, fydyll, fidel, earlier fithele, from Old English fiðele "fiddle," which is related to Old Norse fiðla, Middle Dutch vedele, Dutch vedel, Old High German fidula, German Fiedel "a fiddle;" all of uncertain origin ." As to the origin of the word "fiddle", the "...usual suggestion, based on resemblance in sound and sense, is that it is from Medieval Latin vitula ." The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term "fiddle" has "...been relegated to colloquial usage by its more proper cousin, violin, a process encouraged by phraseology such as fiddlesticks (1620s), (the) contemptuous nonsense word fiddle - de-dee (1784), and (expressions like) fiddle - faddle ." </P> <P> The earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked (for example, the Greek lyre). Two - stringed, bowed instruments, played upright and strung and bowed with horsehair, may have originated in the nomadic equestrian cultures of Central Asia, in forms closely resembling the modern - day Mongolian Morin huur and the Kazakh Kobyz . Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East - West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire . </P> <P> The first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lira . These included the rebec; the Arabic rebab; the vielle (also known as the fidel or viuola); and the lira da braccio The violin in its present form emerged in early 16th - century northern Italy . The earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words "violino" and "vyollon" are seen in Italian and French documents . One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, published in Lyon in 1556 . By this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe . </P> <P> The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility; the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560 . One of these "noble" instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin . The finest Renaissance carved and decorated violin in the world is the Gasparo da Salò (c. 1574) owned by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and later, from 1841, by the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull, who used it for forty years and thousands of concerts, for its very powerful and beautiful tone, similar to that of a Guarneri . "The Messiah" or "Le Messie" (also known as the "Salabue") made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine . It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford . </P>

Who was the first person who made the violin
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