Italian family of violin makers. The patriarch of the family, Andrea Amati (b before 1511; d Cremona, 24 Dec 1577), was possibly the founder of modern violin making; certainly he was the first violin maker to work in Cremona, the city whose name today is synonymous with the craft. Little is known of his life. His earliest documented instrument, a violin with three strings dated 1546, was still in existence in Milan at the beginning of the 19th century, according to a contemporary source. Of his surviving instruments – violins of two sizes, large violas (tenors) and large cellos – most have the coat-of-arms of Charles IX of France painted on the back and are dated between 1564 (fig.1) and 1574. The authenticity of these instruments has recently been challenged. If they are genuine then, Andrea must have been working well before that time for his fame to have reached the French court prior to the commissioning of these instruments (see Violin, §I, 3(iii)(b)). In this period Gasparo da Salò, also sometimes considered the inventor of the violin, was just beginning his work in Brescia.
While there may have been violins before Andrea Amati (see Violin, §I, 3(i)), he appears to have originated the form of violin, viola and cello as they are known today. His concept of design was carefully thought out in accordance with contemporary standards of measurement and proportion. These classical construction principles distinguish the instruments of the Cremonese school from those made almost anywhere else and give them much of their visual superiority. To those accustomed to later violins, it is difficult to appreciate the astonishing modernity and sophistication of Andrea’s work. The shape and curvature of the bodies have become the standard look of a violin. The scrolls show immense originality and have virtually set the rules for scroll design for all time. Only in the fuller archings and the somewhat archaic soundholes do Andrea’s instruments reveal the era of their creation. The work is delicate, the tone sweet, but they are less substantial and robust than those of the later generations. Andrea’s golden or golden brown coloured varnish is very much the same as that which followed in his family.
Andrea Amati’s two sons were Antonio Amati (b Cremona, c1540; d Cremona, 4 Feb 1607) and his half-brother Girolamo [Hieronymus] Amati (i) (b Cremona, c1561; d Cremona, 21 Oct 1630). They are commonly known as ‘the brothers Amati’. Although heirs to their father’s business, they apparently worked little together, and in 1588 the business was divided, with Girolamo retaining the family workshop and tools. Nevertheless, in all but a very few instances the productions of both the Amati workshop still carried the printed label of their partnership until 1630. They further developed the craft of violin making, improving the form of the soundhole and in subtle ways giving their instruments more strength. They experimented with different forms of outline and arching as well as with the visual aspect of the edge and purfling, but always retained that special quality of sound and an elegance that delights the eye. One innovation attributed to them, though this was possibly a Brescian creation and is also sometimes ascribed to Maggini, was the contralto viola, the size regarded as more or less ideal today. The much larger tenor viola was more common at the time, and the Amatis also made many of these. They also built large-size cellos; both these and the tenor violas have mostly been reduced for modern playing.
The instruments of the brothers Amati were spread throughout Italy and the Continent, and their influence upon other schools of violin making is incalculable. The superior appearance and construction of their instruments made them the model for all violin makers and thus Cremonese violins became the standard by which all are judged, even today. They were soon copied, even counterfeited, and long after the brothers' passing their designs inspired violin makers in Turin, Venice, Bologna, Milan, Florence, Padua, the Tyrol and the Netherlands. In England they were much in vogue at the end of the 18th century, the time of Forster and Banks. Since that time, however, the work of Nicolò, and especially his ‘Grand Pattern’, has generally been more appreciated by violin makers, and the brothers are sometimes underrated by comparison.
Nicolò Amati (b Cremona, 3 Dec 1596; d Cremona, 12 April 1684) was the son of Girolamo Amati (i). He was the most refined workman of the family, and today its most highly regarded member. His training would have commenced during the first decade of the 17th century, and by 1620 his had become an evident and even dominant hand in the instruments emanating from that workshop. The plague that killed his father in 1630 and much of his immediate family had been preceded by two years of famine, devastating the city of Cremona. The same plague killed Maggini, the Amatis’ great rival, in 1632, and so, apart from a few provincial followers of the Brescian School, Nicolò Amati was suddenly the only violin maker of any consequence in Italy. Commissions for new instruments, needless to say, were likely few and far between during this decade, and violins from this period are exceedingly rare.
By 1640 the violin-making momentum had been regained, and Nicolò and his work entered a second phase. Once more, instruments poured forth in response to heavy demand, and the 1640 census returns show that Nicolò had assistance in his work from outside of his immediate family. Among the known violin makers who appeared in his household were Andrea Guarneri, G.B. Rogeri, Giacomo Gennaro, Bartolomeo Pasta and Bartolomeo Cristofori (probably the same Bartolomeo Cristofori who later invented the pianoforte), and there are several documented makers for whom there is no surviving independent work. Jacob Stainer may at some time have been Nicolò’s pupil as well, and others with personal connections to Nicolò include Francesco Rugeri and Antonio Stradivari.
Most of Nicolò Amati’s production seems to have consisted of violins, the proportion of violas and cellos being very small compared with that of his father and uncle. Although, as previously, the violins were of differing dimensions, from about 1628 he favoured a wider model than before, known in modern times as the ‘Grand Pattern’ (fig.2), and these violins are the most sought after. Well curved, long-cornered, and strongly and cleanly purfled, they perhaps represent the height of elegance in violin making. The soundholes too have a swing to their design, and the scrolls are in the best Amati tradition. The varnish leans away from brown and towards golden orange in colour: it must have been quite soft, as the top coat has now usually worn away. The arching shows a tendency towards what is known as ‘scoop’ near the edges. This degree of flatness, invariably exaggerated by imitators, causes the flanks of an instrument to be thin, resulting in a sweetness of sound which lacks power, at least in comparison with instruments of Stradivari and Guarneri ‘del Gesù’. Nicolò Amati’s instruments are appreciated for the noble quality of the sound, combined with ease of response.
In 1645 Nicolò married Lucrezia Pagliari, and their son Girolamo took a leading hand in the workshop as soon as he was of age. This becomes evident in the 1660s, and by about 1670 the Amati shop was firmly in the hands of Girolamo. Once again the character of the violins changed, and the ‘Grand Pattern’ became rarer, though the golden varnish remained. As great as Nicolò’s creative achievement was, ultimately his greatest influence lay in the impact that his workshop had upon the art of violin making as a whole. His numerous pupils and employees carried the concept of the shop to almost every major commercial centre in Italy and in some cases abroad, thus enhancing the overall quality of Italian violin making and helping to give it the cachet that it carries to this day.
Girolamo [Hieronymus] Amati (ii) (b Cremona, 26 Feb 1649; d Cremona, 21 Feb 1740) was the eldest son of Nicolò Amati. His early training would have begun in the early 1660s, at a time when Rogeri was serving his apprenticeship with Nicolò, and by 1666 his hand became increasingly evident in the production of the workshop. Following his father’s death Girolamo continued the operation of the workshop, but at a gradually decreasing rate of output, indicative perhaps of competition from Antonio Stradivari and the Guarneri shop. During these years Girolamo and his brother, Giovanni Battista (a priest), entered into a series of financial transactions which gradually weakened the family finances, resulting in a lawsuit against Girolamo. By 1697 he had fled Cremona for Piacenza, where he stayed into the following decade. He remained away from Cremona until about 1715, when he returned to live in the family home with his daughter and son-in-law, and he died just days short of his 91st birthday.
Though he was a fine maker, ‘Hieronymus II’, when compared to his ancestors, suffered the same fate as other sons of great men. Most of the late instruments of Nicolò show his participation, and many appear to have been made by him unaided, and they are often less inspiring than the earlier ones, somehow lacking the grace and fluency that his father possessed. Tonally, they are often superior, for he eliminated any hint of scooped edges, and his arching is usually rather full in the upper and lower flanks. His soundholes, though nicely finished, lack the dynamic character of Nicolò’s and the scrolls appear heavy with the fluting left rather flat in the manner of Rogeri. After Nicolò’s death the varnish lost its golden brightness; while Girolamo (ii) still used a golden yellow, other instruments are varnished in a reddish brown which is perhaps a little less transparent. Only half a dozen instruments are known from after his departure from Cremona in 1697.
C. Bonetti: La geneologia degli Amati, Liutai, e il primato della scuola liutistica cremonese (Cremona, 1938; Eng. trans., ed. D. Draley, 1989)
L.C. Witten: ‘The Surviving Instruments of Andrea Amati’, EMc, x (1982), 487–94
P.J. Kass: ‘The Stati d’Anime of San Faustino: Tracing the Amati Family, 1641 to 1686’, Journal of the Violin Society of America, xii/1 (1992–3), 3–85
C. Chiesa and P.J. Kass: ‘Survival of the Fittest’, The Strad, cvii (1996), 1296–1303 [On the Life of Nicolò Amati]
C. Chiesa and P.J. Kass : ‘Crowded Out and Determined to be Different’, The Strad, cx (1999), 1044 [Girolomo (ii) Amati]
CHARLES BEARE/CARLO CHIESA, PHILIP J. KASS