Fondazione Antonio Stradivari Ente Triennale Strumenti ad Arco - Liuteria a Cremona
Cremona 1730 - 1750
A unique location The great exhibition will be held in the
Stradivarius Museum and certain rooms of
the Civic Museum
The Stradivarius Museum and certain rooms
of the Civic Museum are to host the great
exhibition “Cremona 1730-1750 in the Olympian
era of violin making”. The location has been
chosen to underline the unique identity of
the city of Cremona. Here in the museum are
kept the tools, models and notes used by
the Maestro. Part of the material in the
Antonio Stradivarius shop at the time of
its closure, following the death of his son
Francesco (1743), was sold by Paolo Stradivarius
to Count Ignazio Cozio di Salabue, who bought
it so that the violin maker G. B. Guadagnini
could continue making violins similar to
those of the master. The collection of relics
was inherited by the noble family Dalla Valle
del Pomoro of Turin, and was again sold in
1920, for the sum of 100,000 liras, to the
Roman violin maker Giuseppe Fiorini. Before
his death, Fiorini donated it to the Civic
Museum of Cremona, thus returning it to the
birthplace of Stradivarius. The transfer
was completed in1930. However, an initial
nucleus of material had already been donated
to Cremona Municipal Council by Giovanni
Battista Cerani in 1893.
The museum illustrates a significant cross-section
of the violin maker's activities. Around
700 items from the shop of Antonio Stradivarius
are on display, providing vital documentation
of the construction procedures he used. The
internal moulds, mostly made of walnut, are
of fundamental importance, because in the
Cremonese construction method, the instrument
is built around the mould. These start with
the first model, based on the G mould (G=grande=large),
which was used to make the Cremonese violin
of 1715, now kept in the Violin Room at City
Hall. The moulds are displayed with all their
accompanying kit and designs and models for
the construction of various instruments,
such as medicei, viole da gamba, viole d'amore,
cellos, guitars, harps and lutes.
As well as the Stradivarius tools and models,
you can see a didactic exhibition illustrating
the various modern stages of construction
of a violin, as well video documentaries
that reconstruct the history of violin making
in Cremona. Alongside the main nucleus of
the Fiorini donation, the museum also documents
the work of major Italian violin makers from
the second half of the 19th century to the
first half of the 20th.
