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i have been browsing photos on romantic era guitars lately.....i noticed this one with what looks like nasty splitting of the top, behind the bridge. then i got to wondering, hm i'm actually surprised not to see a lot more of this, considering how weak cedars and spruces are. is this why the fan bracing was developed for guitars in the 1800s..? i'm assuming this one was not fan braced

Those cracks have nothing to do with brace patterns, and everything to do with good, well-calibrated hygrometers.....

seems hard to imagine a crack pattern like that forming with diagonal(fan) bracing underneath it. have you ever seen a more modern classical/flamenco guitar exhibit that behavior...?

Lot's of fan braced Guitars crack in that manner. That guitar is almost 200 years old, complete with an ebony bridge. Such Guitars were made in large numbers by small workshops. I doubt that they were waiting for the weather to change. Humidity control was virtually non existent.
I've seen many Romantic guitars that don't have those types of cracks but plenty of cracks on Torres Guitars.

The cracks appear to be related to the bridge holes. Each one lines up with a bridge pin. Ain't no tellin' what it looks like inside. I have seen pics of Panormo guitars that had bridge pin holes drilled right through the fan braces.

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Fan bracing was actually developed in the 1700's in Spain. Francisco Sanguino of Seville is generally credited with it's first use.
The whole point of the fan pattern is that it stiffens the thin spruce laterally (across the grain) while helping it to resist string tension and deformation longitudinally (along the grain).

While fan bracing didnt become widely used in Guitars until the 19th century, it didnt start then but there are existing examples of Spanish Vihuela De Mano and Italian guitars from the mid 17th century with fan braces. Even some early Persian lutes from the 15th century have been found to have small fan braces behind the bridge area near the tail.

As far as cracking is concerned the relative humidity of Spain (Torres guitars) to Northern Europe (France, Germany and England) has more to do with the number of romantic guitars with no cracks versus Torres guitars with cracks. Another factor to consider is that a modern classical guitar (proportions popularized by Torres) is much wider and larger a surface area than the shorter scale and smaller top size of a typical romantic guitar.

i did not know fan bracing went back that far. thanks for chiming in everbody. i'd never seen that section of a top crack out like that before. looks brutal

I've repaired a few fan braced guitars with cracks like that and worse. Just because the braces are diagonal doesn't mean you won't get cracks like that. The top can crack right across the bracing.