Fondazione Antonio Stradivari Ente Triennale Strumenti ad Arco - Liuteria a Cremona
Cremona 1730 - 1750
1730: violinmakers in Cremona by Fausto Cacciatori – Coordinator of Scientific
Investigations
Our voyage of discovery through the birth
of the violin and the first masters of Cremonese
violin making ended last October. Now comes
a 200-year leap to the next stage. The new
journey begins in 1730 and will end the following
century, still with the same protagonists:
luthiers and the city.
Two hundred years had gone by since Andrea
Amati rented the house and studio in the
parish of Saints Faustino and Giovita. Those
decades witnessed the work of great families:
Amati, Guarneri, and, during the last quarter
of that century, Antonio Stradivarius, who,
along with Guarneri del Gesu’, would characterize
the following century as well. The 18th century
was also marked by the disappearance of the
shops of the Amatis and Ruggeris, as well
as by the strong impression left by Carlo
Bergonzi.
Our starting point will be the city and its
luthiers in the brief period between 1730
and 1750, although by now this was no longer
the Cremona Fedelissima of Philip II – a
city changed in anticipation of the great
transformations of the second half of the
century of the Enlightenment.
The second phase, in 2009, will take us inside
the Bergonzi family with an exhibition that
promises to be a revelation. Finally, the
1800s, with the last luthiers of the great
school. After them, downfall.
But what happened during the transitional
passage from the mid 1700s until the end
of the century? Did the transmission of material
culture – of know-how – that took place within
the shops for over two centuries get interrupted
or was there continuity?
Was the knowledge of construction technologies,
materials and varnishes the same as during
the years that witnessed the work of Antonio
Stradivarius and Guarneri del Gesu’? And
how did the city change? What links did it
have in the European context?
These are just a few of the questions that
we will try to answer, again with an interdisciplinary
approach, without forgetting that luthiers
live in their own times. Setting them in
the appropriate historical context can only
help interpret their labours and their journey.
