Antonio Stradivari

Italian artisan

• Born: 1644?
• Birthplace: Cremona?, Duchy of Milan (now in Italy)
• Died: December 18, 1737
• Place of death: Duchy of Milan (now in Italy)

Stradivari, the most famous violin maker in history, modified the traditional design of the violin as it had developed for one hundred years in Cremona. He created instruments that are still renowned for their superb tonal quality and that have been the models for violin making ever since.

Early Life

Antonio Stradivari (ahn-TOHN-yoh strah-dee-VAHR-ee) was born into a family whose name can be traced in Cremona to the twelfth century; however, no record of his birth has been found in the various archives of Cremona, despite repeated efforts on the part of researchers. It is known that he was the son of Alessandro Stradivari, and his birth date has been tentatively established as 1644, based on notations of his age written on labels in violins that he made near the end of his life. The Latin form of his name, Stradivarius, is also found on the labels of his violins; this spelling is often used to refer to an instrument made by Stradivari.

The early years of Stradivari remain a mystery. He may have been apprenticed first as a wood carver; beginning no later than the early 1660’s, however, he studied the art of violin making with Nicolò Amati in Cremona. Amati, the leading violin maker of his day, represented the third generation of the Cremonese family who had created and developed the modern form of the instrument.

By 1666, if not earlier, Stradivari began to make violins on his own, and in the next year he established his own household and shop when he married Francesca Feraboschi. Six children were born to this marriage including two, Francesco and Omobono, who became violin makers and worked with their father.

The number of violins Stradivari produced before 1680 was not large; his reputation at this point did not extend far beyond Cremona, so the demand for his violins was not great. It is believed that during this time he designed and constructed a number of other instruments, especially plucked-string instruments such as guitars, harps, lutes, and mandolins. It is also clear that he continued to assist in his teacher’s workshop for several years after he had established his own shop, possibly up to the time of Amati’s death in 1684. The few instruments that survive from this early period show that Stradivari was already a master craftsman who, although following the basic pattern of Amati, was cultivating his own ideas about the best tonal and artistic designs for the violin.

Life’s Work

In 1680, Stradivari purchased a house at No. 2, Piazza San Domenico (later redesignated Piazza Roma), which was to be both his home and his workshop for the rest of his life. That he was able to purchase this three-story structure with a ground-floor shop at the front and ample living space for his family is good evidence of the financial success he was already enjoying. This new house had an attic and loft in which Stradivari is reported to have worked, leaving his varnished instruments to dry there during good weather.

From this house, Stradivari produced most of his stringed instruments, the most important and valuable such instruments ever made. Of an estimated output of 1,100 instruments, approximately 650 are extant, some preserved in collections and museums but many of them in active use by some of the great string players of the present time. In addition to his celebrated violins, Stradivari also made other instruments of the violin family, such as violas and cellos.

In the 1680’s, Stradivari built instruments that show an increasing independence from the models of Amati; he created violins with a more solid and robust appearance and a more powerful tone than those of his teacher. The color of the varnish on these instruments still shows the typical yellowish tint of Amati’s workshop, but sometimes Stradivari added a darker reddish accent. The number of violins produced during this time increased as Stradivari’s fame spread beyond Cremona, and Amati’s death in 1684 left him with no serious rival as the greatest violin maker of that city.

One of the remarkable qualities of Stradivari was his continuing search for any means that would produce a better instrument. The 1690’s saw him working with a newly proportioned instrument known as the “long pattern,” or “long Strad.” In this design, he added 5/16 of an inch to the length of the violin without increasing the width. At the same time, he made subtle alterations in the design to keep the symmetry of the instrument intact. The effect of this new design was to produce a richer, darker tonal quality reminiscent of the sound produced by violins made in Brescia, the only other Italian city to rival Cremona in violin making.

In 1698, Stradivari’s wife died and was given an elaborate funeral, and in August of the next year, the fifty-five-year-old craftsman married Antonia-Maria Zambelli. Five children, none of whom followed in their father’s profession, came from this union. The years from 1700 to 1720 represent the peak of Stradivari’s illustrious career and are often called the “golden period.” His violin designs of this time moved away from the long pattern, and the tonal qualities of the instruments demonstrate a marvelous combination of the darker, richer tone of the previous era and the lighter, sweeter tone from the Cremonese tradition. In these years, Stradivari used the best materials that he (or anyone else) ever put into a violin; especially noteworthy are the magnificent maple backs of many of the instruments. The varnish now reached the orange-brown tint that is regarded as the typical Stradivari color.

Because of the great value and importance of individual instruments produced by Stradivari, names have come to be used to identify them, usually names of famous owners or names associated with some story connected with the particular instrument. Many of the violins made during the golden period are among the most famous: These include the “Betts” of 1704, now in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress; the “Alard” of 1715, which some experts regard as the finest extant Stradivarius; and the “Messiah” or “Salabue” of 1716, which was never sold by Stradivari and has been preserved in the best condition of any of his violins, now on display in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.

It was also during the period from 1700 to 1720 that Stradivari became especially interested in the development of the smaller cellos that were being sought by performers who were evolving the solo capabilities of this instrument. Earlier cellos were larger in size, designed to be an accompanying bass instrument. Stradivari had built a few of these larger instruments, but from 1707 through 1710 he produced a series of the smaller cellos that set the modern standard for the design of that instrument, an achievement no less significant than what he accomplished for the violin.

After 1720, when he was seventy-six years old, Stradivari might have been expected to turn most of the work over to his sons, Francesco and Omobono, who had assisted him through the years, but such was not the case. During the decade of the 1720’s, he remained very active in the production of violins. The tonal quality of these instruments is very high, even though the wood he used is not as beautiful as that of the previous period, and there are occasional signs of his advanced age in the details of the instruments’ workmanship.

The number of instruments produced after 1730 dwindles considerably, but it is clear that Stradivari continued to make violins by himself up to the last year of his life. While in these very late instruments the workmanship shows clear signs of failing hand and eye, the basic design and execution remain those of a master. There are also a number of instruments from this time that were made jointly by Stradivari, his sons, and his pupil Carlo Bergonzi. These instruments are labeled as made “under the discipline of Antonio Stradivari.”

That this man was still actively engaged in his profession at the age of ninety-three is indicative of the remarkable constitution that he must have enjoyed. There are no authentic portraits of Stradivari; a contemporary described him as tall and thin, always to be seen wearing a white cap and a white leather apron—his work clothes. On December 18, 1737, Stradivari died; his second wife had preceded him in death by nine months. They were buried in a tomb located in the Chapel of the Rosary in the Church of San Domenico, just across from the Stradivari house. Other members of the family were buried there through 1781, but in the nineteenth century the church was neglected, falling into such disrepair that in 1869 it was demolished and a public park was laid out on the site. Only the name stone of the tomb is preserved in the civic museum in Cremona, where there are to be found also drawings, patterns for instruments, and other artifacts of Antonio Stradivari.

Significance

Antonio Stradivari brought the art of violin making to its highest level, unsurpassed even to the present day. He patiently and persistently explored the possibilities of the instrument that had been passed on to him by the master builders of his era. At the same time he was constantly searching for better ways of creating the greatest tonal and artistic beauty in these instruments.

During his lifetime, Stradivari was certainly highly regarded and widely known for his skill as a violin maker, for he received commissions for his instruments from many affluent individuals and royal courts. Many of the performers of this time, however, still preferred the designs of Amati and those of Jakob Steiner, the Austrian violin maker who produced fine instruments with a smaller but more brilliant tone. By the end of the eighteenth century, with changing musical styles and the need for a greater volume of sound from musical instruments, Stradivari’s designs for the violin became the clearly favored pattern and have remained so into the twenty-first century.

The fact that these instruments, made several hundred years ago, not only are the best instruments made up to that time but also are unsurpassed since that time has led many to search for some special secret possessed by Stradivari that explains the dominance of his instruments. The particular characteristics of the wood that he used and the varnish on his instruments have been the subject of intense study and speculation for years. Certainly, the choice of materials is important, as is the varnish (not only the recipe but also the manner of application), but most authorities agree that Stradivari’s secret was his genius in combining all of the various materials, design, and execution in a way that makes a Stradivarius the ultimate of the violin maker’s art.

Bibliography

Balfoort, Dirk J. Antonius Stradivarius. Translated by W. A. G. Doyle-Davidson. Stockholm: Continental, 1947. A concise account of Stradivari’s life, interwoven with good descriptions of the different periods of instrument making. Also included are a number of photographs not to be found in other sources.

Delbanco, Nicholas. The Countess of Stanlein Restored. London: Verso, 2001. A history of Stradivari’s Countess of Stanlein cello, including a description of a yearlong restoration of the instrument. The cello had a checkered past; it was owned by Paganini, wound up in a garbage dump, and was eventually purchased by cellist Bernard Greenhouse, who arranged for its restoration.

Doring, Ernest N. How Many Strads? Our Heritage from the Master. Chicago: William Lewis & Son, 1945. A listing and description of the instruments produced by Stradivari, divided into eight periods. Doring tabulates 509 instruments in this work with detailed ownership histories for many of them, while others can be identified only very briefly. Photographs of more than one hundred instruments are included, and there is also a chapter on Stradivari’s two violin-making sons.

Faber, Toby. Stradivari’s Genius: One Cello, Five Violins, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection. New York: Random House, 2005. A history of Stradivari and six of his instruments. Faber provides biographical information about Stradivari, describing his instrument-making techniques and tracing the history of a cello and five violins that Stradivari created. Some of the instruments have been used by illustrious musicians, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who plays a Davidoff cello, made by Stradivari in 1712.

Goodkind, Herbert K. Violin Iconography of Antonio Stradivari, 1644-1737. Larchmont, N.Y.: Herbert K. Goodkind, 1972. A large deluxe volume that inventories all known Stradivari instruments; seven hundred such string instruments are listed and described here. Photographs of four hundred instruments are a major part of this work, and there is a valuable index of thirty-five hundred names of owners. Some essays on Stradivari and certain aspects of his violins and an extensive bibliography of more than 150 items are included.

Henley, William. Antonio Stradivari, Master Luthier, Cremona, Italy, 1644-1737: His Life and Instruments. Edited by C. Woodcock. Sussex, England: Amati, 1961. The bulk of this small volume is devoted to a chronological listing with brief descriptions of 455 Stradivari violins, violas, and cellos. Short chapters on Stradivari’s life and periods of work and an editor’s foreword dealing with fake instruments are included.

Hill, W. Henry, Arthur F. Hill, and Alfred E. Hill. Antonio Stradivari: His Life and Work, 1644-1737. London: William E. Hill and Sons, 1902. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1963. The standard work on Stradivari’s life and instruments, written by three brothers who were violin experts and devoted much of their lives to the study of Stradivari and other string instrument makers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Incorporates previously unpublished research of A. Mandelli of Cremona.