• Jun 16, 2019 - Top: two-piece, quarter-cut spruce: medium grain with bear-claw figure; wood pin through top into top block at center joint; wood pin through top into bottom block a.
• 16-apr-2014 - Viola based on the 17.5' Gasparo da Salo Renaissance Viola in the Ashmolean Museum More information Find this Pin and more on Bristol Violin Shop Gallery by Bristol Violin Shop.
• Gasparo da Salo viola scroll, c. Saved by Fein Violins. Music Museum Orchestra Musical Instruments Musicals Boxes.
• Jun 2, 2018 - The National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota. Visit one of the world’s premier music museums. Collections feature over 15,000 instruments.

16-apr-2014 - Viola based on the 17.5' Gasparo da Salo Renaissance Viola in the Ashmolean Museum More information Find this Pin and more on Bristol Violin Shop Gallery by Bristol Violin Shop.

Stradivarius Violins • Antonio Stradivari

There have been hundreds if not thousands of great violin makers throughout the centuries. Here are five of the most famous early violin makers who have contributed important innovations to the art of violin making.

Gasparo da Salo (1540-1609)

Born in Salo Italy, Gasparo da Salo is credited for turning the manufacture of bowed instruments into an art. He produced many grand double-basses and violas, which were considered the foundation of Italian violin-making. Although he did not found the Brescian school, he became the head and rose to prominence within his lifetime.

Andrea Amati (1520-1611)

Born around 1520, Amati began a dynasty of master luthiers and founded the violin-making school of Cremona. There is not enough evidence to support when or where he received his training; however it is suggested that he learned his trade from Gasparo da Salo. Perhaps the finest instruments by Andrea Amati were twenty-four violins, six tenors and eight basses he made for Charles IX. The National Music Museum owns The King, the world’s oldest extant cello made by Andrea Amati. The museum also owns Amati’s 1560 viola, 1560 violin and 1574 violin.

Nicolo (Nicolaus) Amati (1596-1684)

The grandson of Andreas Amati, Nicolo was the most talented violin-maker of his family. He was responsible for developing a grand pattern, wider than his predecessors’ violins. The new pattern also featured pronounced corner points. Some believe that Nicolo Amati taught the great Antonio Stradivari, however there is little evidence to prove this theory. He did have many pupils including Jacob Railich, Bartolomeo Pasta, Bartolomeo Cristofori, Giacomo Gennaro, and Giovanni Battista Rogeri.

Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri (1698-1744)

The grandson of Andrea Guarneri, he was the most famous member of the Guarneri Family of violin makers in Cremona, Italy. His violins always had good tone, although they were not as elegant as Stradivari’s designs. His violins featured longer, less refined versions of Stradivari’s f-holes. Still, he is considered the only rival to Stradivari and many musicians covet his violins over Stradivari’s work. It is estimated that he handcrafted around 250 violins, 150 of which survive today.

Carlo Bergonzi (1683-1747)

Bergonzi was another great violin maker from Cremona, Italy and one of the last to use its beautiful varnish. His violins featured the perfect combination of Stradivari and Guarneri designs including carefully carved scrolls, elegant edge-work and precisely cut f-holes. He was also inspired by del Gesu’s strong, flat arching. He handcrafted his best instruments from 1730 to 1740.

Giovanni Paolo Maggini (Brescia, c. 1600)

Again we are dealing with a magnificent and very rare example (there are two in the world) of the art of violin making in Brescia, which at the time was part of the Venetian Republic, from one of the outstanding violin makers of all times, Giovanni Paolo Maggini, pupil of Gasparo da Salò. Since the top was formed out of four planks of wood dendrochronology cannot be carried out on this instrument, therefore we base the attribution on Charles Beare, London.

The proportions and the design of the body of this viola da gamba bestow upon it a majestic presence. Viols in the form of violins were often built not only in Italy, but also in diverse other countries. In his treatise, “The Division-Violist” of 1659, Christopher Simpson, perhaps the most important pedagogue for his instrument, recommends this form above the others, stating that the sound is “sprightly, like the violin”. Although the back of the Maggini viol is flat, this is not necessarily the case: the viols by Grancino, Boivin and Tielke, all in this collection, have shaped backs, like the violins.

The appearance of the Maggini is majestic and aristocratic; this shows that the luthiers invested all of their powers to create an instrument which not only produced a sound delectable for the human ear, but which would also please the aesthetic criteria of the human eye. Nevertheless it would be a crime to enclose this instrument in a glass case never to be heard again: it would be a great loss for musician and public alike.

See also the recently purchased tenor viol by Gasparo da Salò

The Italian Renaissance and Early Baroque viols in concert:
Music for Charles V and Philip II

A very similar instrument in painting:

The dendrochronological investigations of the University of Hamburg (Dr. Peter Klein and Dr. Micha Beuting) revealed that the annular rings of the wood of the top came from the 1352 to 1564, thus certifying the authenticity of the age of this instrument.

See also the treble viol by Giovanni Balla Bugger, which has a similar outline

More on dendrochonology

For further readings on viols in the shape of violins, see:

Violas da gamba in the shape of the violins, but with sloping shoulders

Museum Violin Da Salome

Caspar Da Salo Violin