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For centuries information about the lives andmethods of the great violin makers has beengathered and recorded, and like some enormoussymphonic work this information has been interpreted in the time-honoured manner. Its well-loved themes have provided safety and security forboth dealers and owners of classical instruments.However, just as there are many ways to interpret afamiliar symphonic work, there are many ways tointerpret the information that, for generations, hasbeen known about violin making. New research intothe careers of the Cremonese painter Sofonisba Anguissola and the violin maker Katarina Guarneriillustrates this. They were not of the same socialstanding or nationality and 200 years separated theirlives, but they were both required to earn their ownkeep in countries foreign to them and, until the laterpart of the 20th century, they were both written outof history, Sofonisba through pure prejudice andKatarina (to whatever extent) through sheer greed.Although still little more than an interesting footnotein tire history of Cremona, these two women repre-sent the beginnings of a revolutionary new way ofthinking abort the arts generally and aboutCremonese violin making in particular.

The results of thinking in this way can be bothexciting arid disturbing and, in some respects, theymake answering questions about the identity ofCremonese instruments more rather than lessdifficult. Moreover, archive research and investiga-tions into the style and methods of the school are be-ginning to expose contradictions as often as theyprovide revelations. Consequently most Cremoneseinstruments can no longer be assessed with the

When it was made by his son.

Roger Hargrave suggests that manyCremonese masterpieces are in fact thework of lesser-known makers

Undercover agents

When is a Strad not a Strad?

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confidence and precision of the past. For connois-seurs, that which is being revealed about theCremonese violin makers should be setting off alarmbells.

One of the great weaknesses of connoisseurs istheir tendency to become infatuated with lofty ideasand ideals. In spite of the magnificence of Cremoneseinstruments, violin making was (and still is) a tradi-tional, repetitive craft, where technical proficiencycarne before artistic inspiration. However, almostsince the time of the violin enthusiast and dealerCount Cozio de Salabue (1755-1840), connoisseurshave largely ignored this fact, preferring to perceiveviolin making as an art form. As a result, individualmakers were elevated to the status of artists, aprocess which altered the perception of Cremoneseinstrument production. Inevitably, the myth of thelone individual making one-off masterpieces becamefirmly established, although the reality was some-what different.

In the 200 and more years of classical Cremoneseviolin making, no more than 20-25 master makers aretraditionally thought to have been involved in thetrade. None of these makers worked entirely alone.At some stage all of them received help, usually fromtheir sons or their apprentices, and in the case ofGuarneri 'deI Gesu', from his father and probably hiswife Katarina. This help was often of major propor-tions. At various times Nicolo Amati had at least 16apprentices living and working in his shop. However,although most of these working relationships havebeen known about for decades, for various reasonsthey have largely been ignored.

The great Cremonese workshops were famous andhighly productive. Although it is difficult to establishthe true extent of these shops' productivity, the

surviving drawings of Stradivari indicate an outputand variety barely represented by the number ofviolin-family instruments that have survived. Airinventory made after the death of the German-bornlute maker Laux Maler (c. 1485-1552) might help toshed some light upon the structure and form of in-strument making at the time of Andrea Amati. Maleris accredited with several important developmentsin lute design, including the elongated or pearshapedlute form. Although few of his instruments have sur-vived, this extensive and detailed inventory revealsamong other items 1100 finished lutes of varioussizes, 1300 sounboards, most carved and ready for as-sembly and several chests full of prepared lute ribs.Clearly, in spite of the exceptionally high quality ofthe rare surviving works, Maler's workshop was alarge commercial enterprise. His instruments weremarketed throughout Europe, a task which, consid-ering the numbers, would be formidable even inmodern times. Although he was apparently a skilledmaker. Maler's strengths lay in his organisation andmarketing skills. Indeed the business was so well or-ganised that after Maler's death the company con-tinued for a further 61 years, evidently trading underthe same, name.' From the details that are knownabout the major Cremonese workshops, especiallythose of the Amatis and the Stradivaris, it is not

THIS PAGE AND BEFORE

Stradivari's 'Spanish'violin from 1723. At thistime production in therest of Cremona was at amysteriously low ebb

161unreasonable to reflect that they may have been or-ganised in a similar fashion. In particular the highsocial standing of these makers, the internationalnature of their businesses and the innovative style oftheir work suggest this.

It has become obvious that apart from thosemakers whose instruments are readily identifiable,several makers whose names are known but whoseworks are now unknown were also active in Cremona.

Some may well have been employed as outworkersfor the larger shops. However, at least one family, theCironi, was granted citizenship in the city. At the timeof the first Amatis both the father and the son weremaking instruments in the town, apparently includ-ing violins, but there are no known Cironi instru-ments of any kind. From such lost but clearlywell-established makers, some instruments musthave survived. The most likely explanation is thatthrough label manipulation by unscrupulous or mis-guided dealers their instruments have been providedwith better-known and consequently more valuablepedigrees. This 'culture of mainstream names' is anunworthy tradition often continued today by pro-viding a seductive certificate of authenticity for in-struments lacking a favourable label. It is noticeablethat few dealers write certificates that declare 'pos-sibly 17th-century Cremonese' or 'an unknown Cre-monese master'.

It is an indisputable fact that original and unmovedlabels (in some cases handwritten inscriptions,brands or stamps) are tile only guide to the author-ship of any instrument, whether labelled or not.

The manipulation of labels is not only a catastro-phe for so many supposedly lost makers, it also cre-ates havoc for those attempting to assess the stylistic

IT IS NOTICEABLE THAT FEW DEALERSWRITE CERTIFICATES THAT DECLARE 'POSSIBLY 17TH-CENTURY CREMONESE'OR ’AN UNKNOWN CREMONESE MASTER'.

The absence of authentic labels has always causedproblems. Experts must have access to instrumentsbearing unmoved and unaltered original labels. Theyare the key to every decision made about an instru-ment's provenance. If the classical violin makers hadnot labelled their works, no amount of examinationor archive research could help to identify them.

162development of the better-known masters. Thisproblem may seem insignificant, but cheating cus-tomers for short-term gain is in the long term cheat-ing history. (This practice is still widespread,particularly in the contemporary and semi-modernItalian market.) However, in classical Cremona thiscan only have happened because the instrumentsproduced by lesserknown, and consequently lessvaluable, makers closely resembled those of the mostsought-after masters.

The fate of makers who were exceptionally goodat emulating a more valuable master's work wasoften obscurity. The larger Cremonese workshopswere tightly controlled. Neither the Amatis nor theStradivaris would have tolerated much individualism.In addition, because Cremonese apprentices were rig-orously trained from an early age, they were unlikelyto abandon the methods taught by their masters. Inspite of various stylistic clues, this is probably thereason why it is now so difficult to separate some ap-prentices from their masters. Several were so skilledat working in the style of their master that their ownstyle hardly surfaced. This is the obvious explanationfor the difficulties experienced by experts when try-ing to establish the identity of Stradivari's teacher.Conversely, the highly individual style of AndreaGuarneri is more easily identifiable on many Amatiworkshop instruments.

Like the Cironi family, other uncelebratedCremonese makers may have established their own

businesses, presumably using their own labels, buttheir names have simply been erased, initially fromthe instruments and ultimately from the records.After leaving the Casa Amati, Bartolomeo Pasta maynever have made another violin, but just as conceiv-ably he may have made many exceptional instru-ments in the Amati style, instruments that are nowcertified as authentic Amatis. fit other cases themeanest efforts of some makers may now be recog-nised as their own work, while their finest creationsare accredited to their (usually more marketable)masters. In Cremona the most likely possibilities areGiacomo Gennaro, Girolamo Amati II, KatarinaGuarneri and even the sons of Antonio Stradivari.Gennaro, one of Nicolo Amati's most trusted appren-tices, was in business in Cremona for 50 years afterleaving the Amati household. The extreme rarity ofhis instruments defies anything but the most obvi-ous explanation.

Sensitive thinkers should even question the trueauthorship of Antonio Stradivari's acclaimed golden-period instruments.

THIS PAGE the 'Harrison', one of the magnificent in-struments Stradivari produced during the 1690s. Thiswas probably his personal golden period - the last inwhich he was designing, if not working, alone

163years remain unaccounted for. At this time instru-ments from Vincenzo Rugeri are also rare, as arethose of Giuseppe 'filius Andrea' Guarneri through-out tile 1720s. And finally, there is the mysterious ab-sence of Giuseppe Guarneri 'del Gesù’ also in the1720s. In fact, outside the Stradivari workshop, pro-duction in Cremona was at an exceptionally low ebb.It is not beyond reason to suppose that these makerswere all contributing to the massive output of in-struments labelled by Antonio Stradivari. If so, it

The facts have been available for a long time, but thewill to interpret them in a more creative fashion hasalways been lacking. According to George Hart2, theHills3 and most subsequent aficionados, the year 1700heralds the dawn of Stradivari's golden period. How-ever, in 1700 Antonio was already 56. By 1704 he was60. In 1716, the date of the 'Messiah', he had turned72, and as tine golden period drew to a close he was75. At the beginning of the period his two sonsFrancesco and Omobono were 29 and 21 respectively.At the end they were 48 and 40.

Like the other great Cremonese workshops, theStradivari shop was primarily a place where violinswere manufactured and apprentices were turned intomaster violin makers. In those uncertain times An-tonio Stradivari was not aware that he would liveuntil he was over 90. In order that his sons could con-tinue without him, he would have turned them intoskilled craftsmen as quickly as possible. By the age of20 at the latest, his sons would have been highly pro-ficient makers. Francesco in particular must havecontributed massively to the golden period's pro-duction. Neither should it be forgotten that a thirdson of Antonio. Giovanni Battista Martino, was prob-ably also employed in the workshop until his un-timely death in November 1727 at the age of 24.

As eminent as the Hill brothers undoubtedly were,their contention that Antonios's Sons were somehowsubstandard is nonsense. In 1902, in their otherwiseexceptional work, the Hills made the following com-ment 'On Omobono and Francesco embraced the ca-reer of their father, but neither of them can be said tohave distinguished himself: they were, in fact, com-pletely eclipsed by their brilliant and long-lived fa-ther. 'Such comments are based upon the quality ofone or possibly two labelled works by Francesco andOmobono, which were made after the death of theirfather. These extremely rare works and presumablyseveral similar unlabelled or relabelled works werecreated by Francesco between the ages of 66 and 72and by Omobono between 58 and 63. This is hardly afair assessment of their contribution to the art of Cre-monese violin making.

The Stradivari workshop was probably modelledon that of Nicolo Amati who, as has been pointed out,employed numerous apprentices. Apart from Anto-nio's three sons, it is possible that several other mak-ers were employed, possibly even after the goldenperiod. There is no sign that Carlo Bergonzi wasworking alone in Cremona until about 1730. This ef-fectively means that more than 30 of his working

One of the very few instruments labelledOmobono Stradivari He and Francesco musthave made many others, yet they are almostall missing

164would also be reasonable to suppose that they weredoing important work and not simply jointing backsand making pegs.

As for Antonio Stradivaris personal golden period,this was more likely to have been when the magnifi-cent instruments of the 169Os were created. Theserepresent his most skilful phase as a craftsman. Hisprecision surpassed even that of the Amatis, and itcan be argued that if not acoustically, at least aes-thetically this was his finest hour. Furthermore, thiswas probably the last period in which he was design-ing, if not working, alone. Francesco was 19 in 1690but almost 30 when the next designs, for the goldenperiod instruments, were being developed.

The 18th-century writings of Count Cozio di Sal-abue illustrate the problem of these forgotten makersperfectly. In particular, he could identify many Mi-lanese makers who are now unknown. Brescia. too,was a major centre of instrument making with manyrecorded names, but now only the works of Gasparoda Salo and Maggini are approved. It is impossible toestimate the number of Cremonese makers and in-struments that fall into this category, but there werecertainly far more than was previously believed: inparticular the role of women in Cremona'-- violinworkshops is in need of much research, although itmay already be too late. Unfortunately, vandalismdriven by greed has drastically reduced our knowl-edge of thus and of other great schools. It is the mainreason why makers like Girolamo Amati II, GiacomoGennaro. Katarina Guarneri and the sons of Stradi-vari are virtual footnotes in the chronicles of Cre-monese making. Nevertheless, in spite of labelfalsification and deliberate misrepresentation, thepossibilities for reinterpreting information about theclassical makers are still immense.

Whatever the true facts may turn out to be, re-assessment does not call for the denigration or de-valuation of these great works. It merely offers adifferent explanation, perhaps a more accurate one,certainly a more interesting one. The artistic meritof the Sistine Chapel is not lessened by knowing thata small army of craftsmen were working under thedirection of Michelangelo. Nor are the chairs ofRobert Adam and Thomas Chippendale any less wor-thy because they personally never raised a chisel intheir preparation. The world can live with a HenryMoore sculpture that, though weighing several tons,was never more than a tiny model in the artist'shands. It must now learn to live with violins to whichtire accredited master may have contributed little

more than the plans and some fatherly guidance.

REFERENCES

1. 'Laux Maier c.1485-1552', Sandro Pasqual, trans. JohnMassey with contributions by Chris Goowin and Peter Lay.Lute News no.51, September 1999

2. The Violin, its Famous Makers and their Imitators, GeorgeHart. Dulau and Co., London 1875

3. Antonio Stradivari, His Life & Work (1644-1737), W. HenryHill, Arthur F. Hill & Alfred E. Hill. W.E. Hill & Sons, Lon-don 1902