Antonius Stradivarius

I think probably everyone has heard of Antonius Stradivarius the renowned Cremonese luthier who lived from 1644 until 1737. Antoni made violins during the zenith of Cremona violin making. As a violinist I find this very interesting so when I learned that there was a museum in Cremona dedicated to Antoni I felt compelled to go. Rick Steves doesn't mention Cremona in his book so I was flying solo.

I took the train from Milan. It was about an hour and 15 minute trip. I disembarked at the train station and my first impression was there were no or very few tourists. This was a pleasant surprise after all of the touristy places I have been to in Italy. I walked about 30 minutes into Cremona and the number of violin and Stradivarius sculptures slowly increased until I reached the violin museum. They had an audio tour set up for the museum which took one through the history of the violin and violin manufacturing in Cremona. The museum has about 20 instruments made by Stradivarius all of which are named. I recognized the Stradivarius Cremona as many instruments such as my violin is a copy of this violin. Now what was really impressive which totally caught me off guard was that the museum had a very large collection of tools, original molds and patterns used by Stradivarius. Supposedly his three sons involved in the luthier business died several years after he died. Stradivari lived to 94 so two of his sons were in his 60s when they died which for 1750 was an old age. In the late 18th Century his youngest son who was not a luthier sold them to Italian violin collector Count Cozio. After being kept by Count Cozio and his descendents, they were finally sold in the early 20th Century to violin maker Giuseppe Fiorini. In a generous gesture, he donated the entire collection of tools and Stradivari templates/forms to the City of Cremona in 1930. As such you can see all of this stuff that Stradivarius used to actually make the instruments much with his labelling and instructions written on them. Think of what a great resource all of this preserved equipment has been for violin manufacturers. The stuff was all laid out in drawers which could only be pulled out by this extremely enthusiastic museum worker who described all of the equipment and pointing out subtleties that would have been missed such as the most worn mold. It was really impressive and well worth the trip. The museum also displayed winners of the yearly luthier competitions the museum has. Afterwards I wandered over to the luthier school but there was not much to see. I wandered around the rest of the city taking in the beautiful cathedral before walking back to the train station for my 3:30 train to Milan. A very enjoyable day.Read more