The violin wasn't so much invented as it "developed". It started off very different to what it is today and changed, bit by bit over the years, to the instrument we now know.
: Yes, actually: in the very late Renaissance. It would have been around 1585 when the violin pattern started to really develop. After that, it became kind of standardized. And it really took off...
No one knows who first invented the violin. Some people think that when Arabs escaped the Turkish fundamentalist reaction in about 1175 AD, they brought the rebab or "spiked fiddle" with them. That...
the violin wasn't so much invented as developed, as it syrted off very different from how it is today and changed, bit by bit to the instrument we now know.