Ep 17. Nicolo Amati, master violin maker

The Violin Chronicles Podcast

Nicolo finds love, the workshop is full steam ahead and this violin maker has to find creative ways to get family members out of his house so his future bride doesn’t freak out! This is one busy luthier. Follow Nicolo Amati as his family grows and his influence as a violin maker branches throughout Italy and Europe.

In this episode you will also meet a very important family in the story of the violin, the Guarneris, see how their lives overlap with the Amatis as we start to see the beginning of the end of the “house of Amati”

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Lutherie, in Mirecourt.

Welcome back to the story of Nicolò Amati, the third in this generation of violin makers. We now find him in his mid 40s. He has survived the bubonic plague in which he lost many of his family members. He lives in the house his grandfather, Andrea Amati, bought and passed on to his sons. And now Nicolo finds himself with an odd crew of orphaned cousins, nephews, nieces, and siblings to look after post pandemic.

The world in which Nicolo lived was changing dramatically. These were the years that Europeans were arriving in the Americas. There were the Spanish and Portuguese in the south. Up north were the English, Dutch, French, and the Swedes. In 1644, when Nicolo Amati was entering his late 40s, the young Antonio Stradivari was born.

Most likely in Cremona and not far from the Amati home. The question, looking at Nicolo Amati this week is, was he just an artisan at the beck and call of musicians and wealthy patrons, looking to have a collection of instruments for musicians coming to their house or court? Socially speaking, where did Nicolo Amati sit in the greater scheme of things?

And why was it that Luthiers from Cremona had this reputation of producing excellent instruments? Why were they better than any other city in that part of Italy at the time? Rome, Naples and Venice were all important cultural centres then, so what made this relatively small city stand out? Well, in the last episode of the Violin Chronicles, we saw Nicolo Amati surviving the plague and getting on with his life.

He gives up depending on family members to help him in the workshop and starts to employ apprentices who come and live and work with him, notably two teenagers. Andrea Guarneri and Giacomo Gennaro. He also starts to make his grand pattern violin. It is surprising that by making something a few millimetres bigger and slightly changing the outline and archings of the violin, he really does change the potential of this instrument and lay the groundwork for the very well known violin makers to come after him.

Niccolò Amati's clients were often noble families and the church, much like his father and grandfather had. And he would even sell instruments that were not his, such as a local priest and musician, Don Alessandro Lodi, whose family turned to him when he died to sell his collection. Here we see Nicolò Amati’s instruments fetching a good price, where others were selling their instruments for 5 ducati Nicolò's violins were going for 15 ducati and 22 for a viola. The double bass he sold from the priest's collection that was not his. It could have been a Brescian instrument, was only 13 Ducati. From the high prices Nicolo Amati demanded for his instruments, we can clearly see that he was not a lowly craftsman, but was an educated and literate member of his community, having gone to school before learning his trade with his father. It would have been important for him, in dealing with his noble clientele, to have a certain level of learning and a knowledge of business, mathematics, and accounting, as would many of his artisan colleagues. At this time in Cremona, schools were attended mainly by children of merchants and nobles, but not only. At school, they would learn. In addition to the traditional subjects of Geometry, Arithmetic, and even Astrology, subjects such as Geography, Architecture, Algebra, and Mechanics, both theoretical and applied.

Carlo Chiesa, violin maker, expert, researcher, and author from Milan.

It is also worth noting that the Amatis at that point, they were wealthy enough people. This is very important because It means they, the kids had an education. They were able to go to school, to be trained properly, not just in the workshop. And they were artisans of a high level anyway. So the daughters of Andrea who got married, they usually got married with good doweries with the people who were from the same social status, and that is also worth noting important because they were not. It means that they were not working for low class musicians, but usually their commission went. to noblemen or high-class customers, which they were able to deal with. That is also another of the reasons for the success of cremonese making, because the artisans were able to deal with the high class.

Nicolo Amati was a product of the Cremonese system. He was not only a talented artisan, but also had a level of education that enabled him access to the upper echelons of society. And this appears to have always been where violin makers sit. Never being part of the nobility as they were in trade and part of the merchant class, yet their product interested and sometimes fascinated the noble classes, somehow giving them a form of access or small door into their world being almost acceptable. As for Nicolo's workmanship, he had always shown a spirit of innovation and thought. He was experimenting in different sizes of instrument in an effort to improve his product and this reflects the time and place he lived. It was, don't forget, the renaissance, and as their world was a relatively small place, he would certainly have known fellow artisans in town, such as the very interesting Alessandro Capra and his sons. Cremona was renowned for its engineers, both civil and military, who published books on their work. They were, after all, on a military highway. What better place to have your shop window? Alessandro Capra, architect and plumber, had opened his workshop in town where he would display his inventions and offer his services as either a military or civil engineer. He also carried out teaching activities for apprentices interested in learning science, art, maths and geometry. From his workshop, he would obtain commissions from various parts of Italy for machines and inventions. In his domestic artisans workshop, he displayed his machines and various models. Lining the walls were precious books filled with information on land surveying, perspective, applied geometry, arithmetic, and merchant accounting.

These were handbooks written expressly for craftsmen, artisans, artists, and technicians. They were not for a specific trade but information for people involved in these activities. and were practical guides on how to go about business. The printed works of Capras were like professional development manuals. They were presented as a collection of craft and commercial problems useful for the training of future generations of craftsmen and traders, land and real estate owners. It also advised landowners on how to earn more money and lower income earners on how to manage better their real estate. It was a 17th century version of how to make friends and influence people. Alessandro Capra also mentions the benefits of following military campaigns, scientific skills linked to the solution of problems, fortifications, ballistics, engineering, mechanical and hydraulic, management and organization of people. Cremona was a great place to be for this as it was continually in the midst of military campaigns and would have facilitated this scientific environment.

But back to the Casa Amati. Nicolo had two assistants living with him that I mentioned earlier and they are actually quite important to our story. They made a team in the workshop and Nicolo trusted them not only with the work on it, instruments but also in his business dealings and everyday life. They were legal witnesses on legal documents and even civic occasions such as his wedding. These two assistants were of course Giacomo Genaro and Andrea Guarneri. Andrea Guarneri is the first in the great family of the Guarneri makers of Cremona and here we see his close relationship with his master.

Carlo Chiesa explains.

And, and then did Andrea Guarneri did he go on to, his instruments, were they based on the Nicolo's Grand Patten?

Sometimes and sometimes also on the other side, Andrea was was a good maker, intelligent maker. And he also, and I'm sure he went on working for Amati also after he moved to his own workshop because their workshops were very close to each other in the same block. And there was a back alley in which they both had a door. So that through the back alley, the two workshops were very, very close to each other.

They could pass a violin.

There's a customer here. I have not a violin finished. You've got one. Yeah, I'm finishing that one. Take it. Take this one. Put your label in.

In 1640, Nicolo Amati stops using the brothers Amati label. It is now almost as if he is truly affirming himself, starting a new chapter in his life. By using the brothers Amati label, his father's, he was in no way trying to deceive people who knew very well that his father was dead, but rather that he had built this instrument in his father's style. Even though he had made the instrument, it was in essence an Amati Brothers instrument. After his father's death, he did indeed create a different model, his grand pattern, and started putting in his own label. This design he owned in his own right a name.

In 1642, the year after engaging his assistants, Niccolò employs a maid, Catarina, along with his two apprentices living in the house, there was his sister and niece and also an 18 year old cousin, Marilina Urbana, who comes to live with them as her parents have died in the plague. Two years on, business is good for Nicolo. He is comfortably well off and the decision to take on a second servant to help out was necessary because now there were two more of the Urbana cousins, Marilina’s little brother and sister Benedetto, who is 12 and his little sister Valeria is only four years old. Along with the assistance that makes nine people living in the house. As time went on, Giacomo Gennaro left the Amati workshop to go off on his own, but Andrea stayed and was particularly close to Nicolò. He was his right-hand man, and Nicolò was now almost 50. He had no children, and perhaps Andrea would inherit the workshop one day. Nicolò is looking more and more like a confirmed bachelor, and then, boom, it happens. Nicolò falls in love. In 1645, he meets the lovely Lucrezia and thinks maybe it's not such a bad idea to get married after all. But here is the catch. At this moment, in Nicolò's household, there are no less than 10 people. That's right, 10 people. There is his 66 year old sister and her daughter, Elisabetta and Angela. There are his two assistants, Giacomo and Andrea, who are 21 and 19, much closer in age to Lucrencia than Nicolo himself. Three orphaned cousins in his care, who really are children, they are 12, 6 and 3 years old, and two servants to help look after them all. Lucrencia would be a brave woman indeed to marry this man, but Nicolo had a plan. One week before the wedding, he gifts his niece a small property with a house in the parish of San Nicolo. In doing this, he discreetly removes his niece and his sister, who will have to go and live with her daughter because she can't live alone. And this move makes way for his new bride, Lucrezia. In the spring of 1645, on the 23rd of May, the 48 year old Nicolo married the somewhat younger 26 year old Lucrenzia Pagliari. Andrea Guarneri was the witness, and her uncle the priest who married them. Their first child, Giolamo, was born the next year on the 6th of February. Just under nine months later. No scandal there. And if Guarneri thought that Nicolo was not going to have anyone to inherit the workshop, he was wrong. Because over the next 15 years, Lucrencia would have three more sons and four daughters. That is a child every two years for 15 years. A year after their first child, Lucrencia has a little girl they named Teresa. Now at this point, something quite dramatic happens to the city of Cremona. There was a siege, and it was because of a war called the 30 Years War. It was such a vast and complicated thing. thing that they probably just ended up calling it the 30 years war because it went on for, well, 30 years. It involved most of the major European powers and during this war Cremona, which was located in the Lombard region of Italy, was a strategic city and was occupied by the Spanish army, as we know. In 1648, the French army, under the command of Maréchal Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, laid siege to the city in order to expel the Spanish. The siege lasted for several weeks and resulted in its eventual capture by the French army. Sadly, Nicolo and Lucanza's first child, Girolamo, died at the age of three, just after the siege in September, so this really was a bad year for them. But the next year, on a freezing February morning in 1649, their third child was born, and they named him, wait for it, Girolamo, like the first son. Their little girl Teresa also died around this time, and a year after the second Girolamo was born, the Amatis have another little girl, whom they name Teresa. Around the time Niccolò married Lucrezia, he made a cello that would end up in the collection of the Grand Prince Ferdinand de Medici, son of Cosimo III. From this we see that the calibre of his instruments are such that nobles would desire them in their collections. This instrument is described in an inventory of 1700, along with 100 other instruments for his private use and that of his chamber musicians. In this list are a number of instruments made by Niccolò and also by the Amati brothers. He must have truly appreciated their instruments and regarded them as items of value. They have come down to us today because they have Throughout their existence, being thought of as such and being looked after carefully. After Niccolo and Lucrenzia's first child was born, Andrea Guarneri, who had been living with them for years, moved out. Maybe noticing that he was the third wheel here. But a few years later, just after Girolamo died, The second was born. Andrea Guarneri was obviously having some problems with his housing situation and moved back in with the Amatis. Ciao! I can imagine Nicolo's wife maybe hinting to her husband to find Andrea a wife. 1650 is also a time when Nicolò starts to use his grand pattern violin more and more. His instruments now show all the classic characteristics of his work, the use of the grand pattern model, his golden yellow varnish, and his archings, which are less scooped than the Amati brothers models.

Andrea Guarneri was one of Niccolò's favourites and thought maybe it was time he got married as well. Nicolò happened to know that one of their clients, the talented musician Giovanni Pietro Orcelli, had a young orphaned cousin from a well to do family. She would be perfect for Andrea. Anna Maria Orcelli had grown up just around the corner from the Amati household. She had lost her family, most probably in the recent plague, and so, in 1652, the 29 year old Andrea Guarneri married Anna Maria. They stayed living with the Amatis for a few more months. But by this time, Ana Maria was pregnant, and they were in the process of moving into a house she had inherited just a few doors down from Nicolo Amati and his family. Anna Maria, as part of her dowry, had a house that was so close to the Amatis that their back entrances were almost next to each other. The relatives living there were proving difficult to move on. Finally, the Relos moved out and Andrea and his pregnant wife could move in. Here, Andrea was able to set up his own business with his new family living upstairs, starting a new chapter in his life.

The number of instrument makers in Cremona was on the rise. Niccolo's instruments from this period are only getting better acoustically and it was the instruments Nicolo made in this era that Antonio Stradivari would go on to copy in what we call his Amatis period. In 1653. The workshop is a busy place and many instruments are being produced. Nicolo, who is 57 at this point, has at least four apprentices working for him and living in the family home. In this busy household lived 12 people, and in the summer, Lucrenzia and Niccolo have their fifth child, Giovanni Battista. Sadly, the Amati's youngest child, Giovanni Battista, would die in infancy when he was two years old. Now living with them were their two children, Servants. Apprentices. There were also three boys who would work for the shop and lived with them. They were called the Malagamba brothers. Giuseppe was 20, his younger brother Giovanni Battista, 17, and Giacomo, the youngest, only 10 years old. They most likely made accessories for Nicolo and will work with him for years to come. In 1655, things were looking up in the Casa Amati. In July, Lucrenzia has a daughter, they name her Anna Maria, and Giovanni Battista, one of the Malagamba brothers, who make accessories for Nicolo Amati, marries a local girl, Apollina. The young couple are both 18 years old and they continue to live with Niccolo and Lucrenzia.

Fun fact about the Amati workshop at this point is that there is an apprentice. In the shop at this time, he will go on to have an interesting career after leaving Cremona. His name was Bartolomeo Cristofiori and he would invent the pianoforte when he was working for the Medici family in Florence.

In 1657, Nicolò Amati has his Seventh child. It is a boy, so they call him Girolamo. This youngest child of the his would have been born into a lively, close knit community. The parish they lived in was a small one where everyone knew their neighbors and their business. The Guarneris are just around the corner and four houses down the road live the Ferraboschi family, including their daughter. who would, in a few years time, marry Antonio Stradivari. And across the road are the Capras, whose nephew would be Francesca's first husband, before Antonio. In 1661, the Amatis last child, a daughter, was born, when Nicolo was almost 65. Her name was Euphrosia Scholastica. His many children shared a busy household with extended family members, cousins, aunts and uncles, workshop staff and servants. At one point there were 11 people living in the home.

Nicolo's wonderfully crafted instruments were in high demand and some would consider them to be some of the most elegant violins ever made. In the workshop, they had apprentices and two or three servants, or hired hands, who would be making accessories such as pegs, fingerboards, bridges, bassbars, and even scrolls. Going to mass on a Sunday, or the town market, the Amati children would have bumped into any number of aunts, uncles, cousins, or neighbours. Around the family lived their friends, enemies, godparents, in laws, landlords, tenants, witnesses at weddings, and legal documents. So from the 1660s, Nicolò's instruments create a standard for the Cremonese makers to aspire to. They are tonally powerful and, from a craftsmanship point of view, masterpieces.

But even before this period, Nicolò Amati had changed his instruments to adapt to the musical demands of the day. The Baroque period in which he lived was producing composers and music that demanded more sound volume from its instruments. This movement was particularly strong in Rome, where compositions needed instruments able to compete with whole choirs to be heard. Monteverdi didn't just double up the violins, giving them the same notes as the singers. The violins were now being written specific musical parts for themselves. To shine and to shine. You had to be heard and to be heard, you had to be more powerful. It is also from the 1660s that over spun gut strength started to be made and used by musicians increasing the tension and power of instruments. Nicolo Amati made two sized violins, big ones, and small ones. The larger ones measure between 354 to 358 millimetres. That is regarded as a standard today, and the smaller ones back length are 352mm, which makes them on the smaller side, but that's not the end of the world.

The smaller ones were often, if you dare, referred to as ladies violins, but really not because women were 5mm smaller than men, apparently, but they were referring to the rooms in which they were to be heard. So a smaller violin would be played indoors. It didn't need to be so powerful and Heaven forbid a lady would play outside, preposterous. And this reminds me, and I know I'm getting off track here, but women's clothing at the time didn't have integrated pockets in them because they thought, when I say they, this is presumably men, they thought that women would fill the above mentioned practical storage spaces with charms and poisons to befuddle the menfolk. And to be fair, that was my first thought when discovering pockets in my clothing, so I'll give them that.

In 1680, the Amati home is still a busy place to be. The children have grown up, and Girolamo, whom we call Girolamo II, not to be confused with his grandfather, Girolamo Amati, who was one of the Amati brothers. Gerolamo II is married and living in the family home with his wife, Angela, and their first child, Vittoria. At the moment, she is pregnant with their second child, and most of Nicolo's apprentices over the years were not from Cremona and have moved home. Some of them have set up workshops in town and some like the Malagamba Brothers have moved just a few doors down the street. And then on April the 12th, 1684, the 88-year-old Nicola Amati died. He would've been greatly missed by his family, friends, and the many pupils he had taught over the years. His legacy was vast, and he definitely changed the landscape of violin making in Cremona, leaving it a city of instrument makers. If it had not been for his willingness to take on apprentices outside his family, the history of violin making and the city of Cremona would have looked vastly different. The week after Nicolo's death, Girolamo II Amati baptized his son Nicolo, and a few months later, Anna Maria, that's one of Nicolo's daughters, and Girolamo's sister, who was already married it seems, finally moved out to live with her husband in the house next door. Who knows what was going on there. Anyway, although Niccolo is probably the most well known of the Amatis, it would have to be his son Girolamo II, the least recognized, and yet as we will see, his work and life is indeed significant in the story of the violin.

But what happened to Girolamo

and why was he the last of the illustrious Amati family? This, we will see in the next episode of the Violin Chronicles. And if you have liked the show, please rate and review it on Apple podcasts or Spotify. That would really help out with the making of the podcast so I can continue to bring you more episodes.

Be sure also to head over to Patreon forward slash the Violin Chronicles. If you would like to support the podcast and become a Patreon, there are extra episodes, and I would particularly like to point out a new series called My Encyclopedia of Luthiers. That little podcast I do with my husband, Antoine.

In it, we summarize each maker in under an hour and describe all the little details to look out for. So you can recognize that particular maker's work. And maybe you can become an expert yourself one day. I hope to catch you next time on the Violin Chronicles. Goodbye for now.