Andrea Amati
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Andrea Amati, born in 1511, was one of the earliest violin makers. He started the Amati Legacy of making violins. Amati always made violins in matched pairs, the most famous of which was a pair of instruments made during the 1560's and 1570's for the court of Charles IV of France. Very few of his violins remain, but there are some that can be viewed in museums accross the world. |
Nicolo Amati
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Nicolo Amati (1596-1684) was one of the greatest makers in the Amati Dynasty. He taught students such as Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri how to make violins. |
Giuseppe Guarneri
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Giuseppe Guarneri (1698-1744) was one of the finest violin-makers of all-time. Guarneri is commonly referred to as "del Gesu" because of the initials I. H. S. and since he signed all his violins with a cross. He deviated widely from family tradition, developing instruments uniquely his own. There are very few of his instruments left today. |
Antonio Stradivari
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Antonio Stradivari, maker of Stradivarius violins, is probably the most famous violin maker ever. He was probably born in 1644 in Cremona, Italy. We don't know this for certain though, since his birth certificate was destroyed. When he was a child, he served as an apprentice to Nicolo Amati before he began making violins at the age of eleven. In his early years, Stradivari made plucked instruments such as harps, guitars, and lutes. In 1666, Stradivari began putting his own labels on his instruments, with the Latin name Stradivarius. When he was twenty-three years old, in 1667, he married a widow four years older than he. They adopted a child, then had another six. His wife died in 1698 and Stradivari remarried in 1699. The couple had four children. two of Stradivari's sons, Fransesco and Omobono, helped their father make violins. In 1684, Amati died and Stradivari changed his violin design to have an orange tint with a more powerful form. He then opened a shop next to Amati's. stradivari's first pupil was Giovanni Guadagnini whose father, Lorenzo, became Stradivari's assistant. He later gained a second student, Carlos Bergonzi. In 1690, Stradivari adopted the "long pattern"; it had a flatter, narrower bouts, darker tone, darker color, stronger arches in the front and back, and a bodylength one quarter longer than usual. Stradivari's style again changed in 1700 when he began to use a finer selection of reddish brown varnish. Stradivari's "Golden Period," from 1714 to 1720, was when he created his finest instruments. These pieces of art had an amber color, a flamed maple back, fabulous tone, and an excellent ease of response. Some of the violins made in this period were the Betts, Alard, and the Messiah. The violin-maker continued his work past the age of ninety. Antonio Stradivari died December 18, 1737 in Cremona, Italy at the age of ninety-three. Throughout his lifetime, he made 1,116 instruments including twenty-five violas, one hundred cellos, two guitars, and six-hundred violins. Today, 450 violins, 60 cellos, and 13 violas. The value of a Stradivarius violin ranges from $25,000 to over $200,000. |