• Date and Place: 1727, August 24, Busseto
• Description: The letter is written on the verso of the paper wrapping used to keep small models that bears on the obverse the inscription drawn up by Count Cozio di Salabue: 'Occhietti della Viola'.
• Measurements: 14.3 x 18.7 cm
• Position: Cremona, Museo del Violino
• Inventory: MS 846
• Acquisition: Perpetual bailment of Giuseppe Fiorini, 1930
• Provenance: Francesco Stradivari 1737; Paolo Stradivari in 1743; Ignazio Alessandro Cozio Count of Salabue 1775; Matilde Cozio Countess of Salabue 1840; Giuseppe Rolando Marquis Dalla Valle; Paola Dalla Valle widow; Giuseppe Fiorini 1920; Municipality of Cremona 1930
• Comments: The enthusiastic determination of Fabrizio Loffi (2015), also taken up by Fausto Cacciatori (2016), about the protection on Stradivari by the Jesuit order, expressed on the basis of this only document, seems exaggerated, especially as the Stradivarian mark placed on the labels (A+S) has nothing of the Jesuitical one, which is composed of a cross placed over the H of the letters JHS and has under three nails intersecting in the tips, also absents in the mark of Giuseppe Bartolomeo Guarneri.
• Transcriptions: Loffi 2015 (I and II); Cacciatori 2016

Immagini

• MS 846 b.jpg