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Reference Library Articles

Alessandro Gagliano

Alessandro Gagliano

Alessandro Gagliano is the beneficiary of one of William Henley's most imaginative and romantic essays.

Andrea Guarneri

Andrea Guarneri

In the pantheon of great Cremonese violin makers, it sometimes seems that some do not get the credit they deserve.

Andrea Guarneri Violin

Andrea Guarneri Violin

This beautiful violin, with its original label stating 'Andreas Guarnerius fecit Cremonae / sub titulo Sanctae Teresiae 1684' is fully characteristic of the Guarneri workshop at this time.

Antonio Gragnani

Antonio Gragnani

Antonio Gragnani was one of the most elegant and stylish of eighteenth century Italian makers.

Camillus Camilli

Camillus Camilli

Camillus Camilli is a delightful maker. His instruments are blessed with classical style and proportion, and the most charming of scrolls, yet are very distinctive and recognisable.

Carlo Landolfi

Carlo Landolfi

Italian violin making benefited from a great many immigrant craftsmen in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi, to judge from the many variations of the spelling of his name on Milanese documents, was one such

Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue

Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue

Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue, to give him his full title, was the first great connoisseur and collector of violins, among the first to recognise the unique value of the work of the luthiers of his own country

Daniel Parker

Daniel Parker

Daniel Parker is one of the best and most mysterious makers in the English tradition

David Tecchler

David Tecchler

The Roman school of violin making is one of the most overlooked of the classical Italian period.

Dom Nicolo Amati

Dom Nicolo Amati

Dom Nicolo Amati of Bologna causes a lot of confusion. Firstly, he had nothing to do with the illustrious family of the same name from Cremona

Domenico Montagnana

Domenico Montagnana

Domenico Montagnana, 'the mighty Venetian', as he was dubbed by the Edwardian writer Charles Reade, was born in the village of Lendinara close to Venice, in about 1687

Fabrizio Senta

Fabrizio Senta

The early period of violin making in Turin is very interesting and not often considered.

Ferdinando Gagliano

Ferdinando Gagliano

The Gaglianos were possibly the longest and most prolific dynasty of all the Italian violin making clans.

Francesco Rugeri

Francesco Rugeri

It sometimes seems impossible to imagine life in seventeenth century Cremona.

Gennaro Gagliano

Gennaro Gagliano

Gennaro Gagliano seems to be an unjustly overlooked member of a particularly large violin making family.

George Panormo

George Panormo

George Panormo worked all his life in London and was born in 1776, but quite where remains a mystery.

Giorgio Serafin

Giorgio Serafin

Serafin is one of the great names of Venetian violin making, but in some ways the lesser-known Giorgio represents the spirit of the tradition better than his uncle Santo

Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Zanoli

Giovanni Battista and Giacomo Zanoli

It often seems as if every parish in Italy was home to a family of gifted violin makers at some time or other

Giovanni Francesco Celoniatus

Giovanni Francesco Celoniatus

Celoniatus is one of the charming and distinctive makers of the early Turin school. His work is consistent in finish and style, and is limited only by the relative lack of tonal power that his elegant Amati-like arching can provide.

Giovanni Francesco Pressenda

Giovanni Francesco Pressenda

The beginning of the nineteenth century saw a dramatic renaissance in the art of violin making.

Giovanni Tononi

Giovanni Tononi

The city of Bologna has made a very important contribution to violin making.

Giuseppe Guadagnini

Giuseppe Guadagnini

Giovanni Battista Guadagnini was not only a truly great violin maker in his own right, but also the head of a small dynasty of luthiers.

Gofredo Cappa

Gofredo Cappa

Gofredo Cappa was a most interesting seventeenth century maker of the Turin school, although born (in 1644) and working in nearby Saluzzo until his death in 1717.

Henry Lockey Hill

Henry Lockey Hill

The Hill family is the longest and most respected of English violin making dynasties, and the generation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century became the world's leading authority, supervising one of the greatest workshops in Europe