Reference Library Articles

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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, '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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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