Stradivari Antonio

  • 1644/49 - Cremona, 18 December 1737
  • From archive documents we know that he was the son of Alessandro Giuseppe, but neither the place nor the date of his birth are known, probably between 1644 and 1649. On the basis of the stylistic features of his first instruments and one of his first known labels, dated 1666, he has traditionally been considered a pupil of Nicolò Amati, but no documentary confirmation has been found so far on his apprenticeship. He lived in Cremona in the parish of S. Cecilia, when he married Francesca Ferraboschi and went to live in a house owned by the carver Francesco Pescaroli, located in the parish of S. Agata. In 1680 he purchased the Casa Picenardi in the square of S. Domenico, parish of S. Matteo, where he lived with his family and worked until his death on 18 December 1737. Two of his sons from his first marriage, Francesco (1671-1743) and Omobono (1679-1742), assisted him in the workshop, probably since their youth, even if Omobono seems to have left Cremona for some time for other activities: a trip of his to Naples in the first quarter of the eighteenth century is documented, but his father's influence on their work was so strong that their stylistic features are almost unnoticeable before 1720. One of his sons from his second marriage, Giovanni Battista Martino (1703-1727), may also have worked in his father's workshop. From 1666 to 1737 Stradivari produced at least a thousand plucked and bowed instruments of every type in use in his time, but the number of those that survive is much smaller. Among them, plucked instruments are very rare: a few guitars, a portable harp, and two mandolins; violins, with stylistic characteristics from different periods of his long career, are the majority; violas are few: about ten 'contralto' ones and only one 'tenor' (the Medicea of ​​1690, which is also the only Stradivarian instrument to have remained unchanged in all its parts); his early cellos were originally of the large size of the late 17th century, most of which were downsized later, while around 1707 he began to develop a new model, known as the 'B form', of which about 20 examples survive; In his last years of activity he created two new models of cello: one narrower than the “B form” and another smaller and more square. Upon his death, the workshop was inherited by Francesco and remained active until his death in 1743, after which Paolo Stradivari (b. 1708), one of Antonio’s sons, rented it for a time to Carlo Bergonzi, and in 1775 sold all the tools, forms and drawings that remained to the Count of Casale Monferrato, Alessandro Cozio di Salabue.
  • Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis / Faciebat Anno ....
creato:giovedì 8 marzo 2012
modificato:giovedì 27 marzo 2025