One of the finest Stradivarius violins ever made is the subject of a furious bidding war in the UK, as the Royal Academy of Music struggles to raise the £1 million necessary to keep it in Britain. The violin, known as the “Viotti” Strad, was recently played in public for the first time in 200 years, and is on display six days a week. “The Viotti is on a par with the ‘Messiah’, or Le Messie, Stradivarius in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which, the conditions of its bequest state, must never be played.”