Cremona

CREMONA: ITS HISTORY
Cremona was a roman colony founded in 218 B.C., north of river Po. In the Republican period it gained military, civil and commercial importance thanks to its geographical position.
The political and economic importance of the medieval Cremona brought about a new urban development, which culminated in the construction of the superb complex of monuments forming the Palazzo Comunale Square and its imposing walls (1169 - 1187). In 1334 Cremona was conquered by Visconti and finally became a part of the dukedom of Milan from 1420 till the unity of Italy. In 1441 to celebrate her wedding with Francesco Sforza, Bianca Maria Visconti brought the town as a dowry and fostered its cultural and artistic renewal. This artistic production, which had as protagonists Bonifacio and Benedetto Bembo in the second half of the fifteenth century, went on also during the sixteenth century when Cremona was under the Spanish rule.

CREMONA: ITS VIOLINS
Cremona has always been considered the city which gave birth to the greatest violin-makers of any time. The importance of these exceptional masters is confirmed nowadays, as in the past, since the greatest violinists play instruments made by Stradivari or Guarneri del Gesù.
The violin appears in the first half of XVI century and Andrea Amati is the first of the Cremonensis violin-makers who gains importance in the manufacture of the bow instruments. In XVII century Nicolò Amati, Andrea’s nephew, made himself known: he continued his great predecessor’s way. Nicolò Amati works in a period in which real instrumental trends started.
From the second half of XVII century the most famous of the violin-makers, Antonio Stradivari, began to work in Cremona. Rich in his predecessors’ experience, he developed the art of making stringed instruments which could meet with the requirements of the music of his time.
Stradivari, making his violins, used the most refined techniques. He lived till 1737 and made more than one thousand works. Among the great manufacturers of the Cremonensis Art, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù had an important place.
He was younger than Stradivari, bud lived only a few years after him. We know about one hundred fifty violins made by him. It would be useless to seek for the refinement of lines shown by Amati’s Brothers or by Stradivari in their works.
He tried, however, to combine the power of sound with the capacity of penetration and at the same time with softness.