You don’t need to be a music expert to know the name “Stradivari”  (or Stradivarius, its latinized version). Along with his lesser known, but just as talented, Cremonese luthiers colleagues, Amati and Guarneri, he wrote a considerable piece of the history of music. Born around 1644, his family was old Cremona through and through, with deeds signed to his ancestors traced back to the 12th century. 

His career as a violin maker started just as that of many other craftsmen or artists, with an apprenticeship. His was in the atelier of the first, great name in Cremona’s violin making industry, Niccolò Amati. Stradivari was only a young boy then: one wonders if he had ever imagined he was to become an even bigger name in the history of instrument making than his genial master.