Classic Wiki Violin

The violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello.

A violin is sometimes informally called a fiddle, regardless of the type of music played on it. The word "violin" comes from the Middle Latin word vitula, meaning "stringed instrument"; this word is also believed to be the source of the Germanic "fiddle".The violin, while it has ancient origins, acquired most of its modern characteristics in 16th-century Italy, with some further modifications occurring in the 18th century. Violinists and collectors particularly prize the instruments made by the Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati families from the 16th to the 18th century in Cremona.

Source wikipedia

Neither a descendant of nor a close relative to the viol, the violin emerged in Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The European forebears of the violin were the rebec and the fiddle, which themselves evolved from similar instruments found in the ancient eastern world. (A two-stringed fiddle was known to exist in ancient China and the rebab was the Arabic forerunner of the rebec.)

Upon its appearance in Europe, the violin was initially considered worthy only of doubling with the voice or accompanying the dance. It was compared unfavourably with the viol because it lacked the softer sounds associated with that instrument. It was the viol family that was to the fore in ensemble playing but this was to change conclusively in favour of the violin family by the end of the seventeenth century.

Source classicol.com

Vanessa-Mae plays Rossini's String Sonata No. 3 youtube video