Reference Library Articles

According to most accounts, the end of the great Amati tradition in Cremona was a rather abject one.

Jacob Rayman is revered in England with rather more honour than he is perhaps due. His contribution to violin making is fairly minor and few instruments of his survive, but as the earliest maker in England his place in history is for the moment secure.

Jacob Stainer remains an enigmatic maker, despite the comparatively large amount of documentary evidence about his life that has been discovered

Jean Baptiste Vuillaume was undoubtedly the most successful violin maker of the 19th century.

This is a rare and fascinating instrument. The name is unrecorded previously, although Henley cites a label of 'Chiaravalle di Faleri'

John Lott, celebrated in life and fiction, is probably the best known of English violin makers.

Lorenzo Storioni is usually credited with saving the rapidly declining violin making tradition in Cremona at the end of the eighteenth century.

Whenever great violins are talked about, the name of Luigi Tarisio will arise at some point.

Marco Dobretsovitch has the distinction of being the only professional violin maker up until the present time active in Egypt.

Leo Fender's designs stimulated demand for the electric guitar at all levels.

We now know a great deal about Michele Deconet, through archival researches in Venice, but there remains a considerable mystery about the circumstances of one of the most apparently prolific of Venetian makers.

Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza was born in about 1730, in a parish outside the city walls of Milan.

The Gagliano dynasty of Naples is possibly the longest and most prolific of any of the Italian violin making families, overtaking the Amati at least in sheer numbers

Sanctus Seraphin (or Santo Seraphino) somehow stands apart from the other makers of Venice.

Spirito (or Spiritus in the latin form found on his labels) Sorsana was one of surprisingly large number of luthiers that made up the first Piedmontese school

Stefano Scarampella has a fine and enviable reputation for tone

Thomas Kennedy was the best and most productive member of a family of violin makers in London, headed by his Scots great-uncle, Alexander. Alexander worked in Market Street, Oxford Road, London (now Oxford Street) from 1731

The marsh-bound city of Mantua was one of the glories of the Renaissance, but in the classical period of violin making, it generated only a small and well defined school of luthiers.

This rare and very fine viola is very important in being of true contralto form, a well-proportioned player's instrument that is also definitive of Landolphi's working style, and provides ample clues to his training and background

The arrestingly beautiful back of this violin is made from maple that occurs more than once in the work of Francesco Rugeri.

This is a particularly fine and early Rocca violin, the original label indicating that is was made shortly after making his independence from his master Giovanni Francesco Pressenda

This violin, a very distinctive and characteristic work by Matteo Gofriller of Venice, carries a label of Carlo Bergonzi.

The firm of W.E.Hill & Sons has long been the most admired and respected in the world of violins