Andrea Amati: Chronicles of a Rediscovered Treasure

There plainly were violins in use in the early sixteenth century and in Amati’s time. Descriptions of players and depictions of violin-like objects in painting and drawing, and even accounts of trading such instruments throughout Europe, all exist, but the straightforward fact is that none have survived to the present day. This seems to indicate that their value and prestige was low. What Andrea Amati represents is perhaps the first attempt to elevate the violin into a piece of fine craft, of artistic aspiration. That this was also definitive for all subsequent violins is equally astonishing. Amati’s skill, not only in workmanship and engineering, but in design and proportion, places him alongside other great innovators in human history. His graceful model was the template for all the great Cremonese makers, as was his method and technique of making, and it is still instantly recognisable even in the most extreme work of Guarneri del Gesù.

The violin is of Andrea’s larger size – there are two identifiable patterns used by Amati, one slightly smaller; a habit sustained by all the family members up to Andrea’s grandson Nicolo. The soundholes dominate the front, and are in Andrea’s own personal style, with prominent, rounded nicks, particularly large finial circles and small wings, close to those of the Charles IX set. I can imagine his sons’ hand in later examples where the nicks and eyes are gradually reduced and the wings widened towards the more familiar later Amati model. The arching is perfectly executed, and lower and flatter, and therefore more modern-looking, than the voluptuously full and recurved forms developed by Nicolo. The maple of the back is relatively plain and slab sawn, not selected for a prestigious commission perhaps, but marked with a distinct circular figure that is interestingly seen also in Brescian work. Although the scroll is not original to the instrument, it strongly suggests the hand of Andrea Guarneri.

The front has perhaps the most interesting story to tell. It is made of a single piece of spruce, and dendrochronology reveals that the tree from which it was cut was well-established by 1297, a date perhaps the earliest yet found on any violin. This tree was growing when Marco Polo was writing his account of his travels to the far east. When Andrea Amati was born in around 1505, Leonardo da Vinci was painting the Mona Lisa. The tree itself was probably cut down very shortly after Shakespeare’s birth in 1564. The violin has had a life, I would like to imagine, sounding the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and there is still no end in sight.