Ep 18. Girolamo II Amati, the last of the Amati family of violin makers

The Violin Chronicles Podcast

Girolamo II Amati was the last of the Amati family of violin makers in Cremona. He worked along side Antonio Stradivari and the Guarneri family in an intense moment of violin making and musical discovery at the time. Listen to how he fits into the story of the violin and turns out to be more that what he is (or not) remembered for.

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 Luthierie in Mircourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with. And in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love. Artistic genius, revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning, and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.

Welcome to the Amati workshop where over the last 150 years generations of instrument makers have lived and worked and the fourth generation is about to start his apprenticeship with his father who is perhaps the most famous of the family due to his beautiful craftsmanship and innovation of design. I'm talking about Niccolo Amati. In 1660, a young 11 year old Girolamo, Nicolo's son, Amati is taken into the workshop. Up until now, he would have been going to the local parish school, learning to read and write. At home, he would be doing odd jobs in the workshop, helping out his father. But now he was going to start working with him and the other apprentices and workers in the shop for real.

Who would not have been proud to work in the famous Amati workshop that attracted the attention of nobles, royals, and also some of the other local boys in town. Especially one who was five years older than Giolamo Amati, named Antonio Stradivari. Nicolo Amatis son would be spending his days with his father and his assistants. At the moment, his father's employees included Bartolomeo Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rogeri. Around the corner lived and worked close family friends, the Guarneri's. Already they had five children and it looked like more were on the way. Girolamo II, as he is known, would have spent a lot of time with his father's senior assistant, Giovanni Battista Rogeri, whose style was bolder than Nicolo's and his influence can be seen in the work of Girolamo Amati II, who would become the last violin maker of the Amati family.

As far as business went, the demands for violins were still strong from home and abroad. Whilst Nicolo Amati’s career was in full swing. North of Italy, a Dutch scientist had just invented the first pendulum clock, and this would forever have an impact on music, as it would lead to equal temperament. Simplified, that really just means that everyone agreed on the speed of the music being played, more or less. Music was being written about and innovations were being adapted to help musicians and the musical environment. There was the printing press that was making it possible for music to travel, opening up exciting new horizons for musicians. And in the eye of this musical storm, slowly but surely, our violin makers, cutting, scraping, plaining and gouging away, were making instruments for this new market. Music was on the road to becoming standardized. Equal temperament and a printed score. You could play a piece of music in London, Paris or Florence and it would be more or less the same, hopefully. While Italy and France were often at odds, the dance and music loving King Louis XIV could only have helped the industry of instrument making with his famed 24 violins in his royal court.

Benjamin Hebert, expert and dealer in Oxford.

1661 is when Lully comes to the French court, and he creates the Petit Band, where he gathers around for the first time since the Valois dynasty, Italian musicians playing, playing French music informed by the new Italian ways of thinking, and there is one of these French court Amatis, where we can absolutely say that the new front, the restoration, is right on the nail for Lully taking these things out of the cupboard and saying, hey, we've already got some great instruments to do this with. By which time, you know, the smoke has cleared. It's history that these have got Valois connections, and it's not as offensive as it would have been to the Huguenot king and his court of people who'd been, you know, routinely assassinated and murdered and genocidal maniac by, uh, Catherine de Medici's henchmen.

Yeah, I was, I was reading that about three million people died in the wars of religion. And I sort of did the equivalence for today for the French population, and that would be like today, nine million people dying in France. Like it's,

it's huge. It's pretty, it's pretty huge. Um, sorry, the corners. talking about that it softened. It's because like they were in a line and you didn't want to get poked by the violin next to you.

Is that it?

I did a project years ago where some people in France produced 24 violins and they didn't do any bows. And what we ended up with was a bow, which is about a foot long. Maybe, you know. Maybe 14 inches or so. Really diddy bow. And actually what we decided, we then subsequently found that Pochette, so French dancing master's fiddles in the Victorian Albert Museum, there's one in a beautiful red leather case with its bow which we actually took as a kind of prototype for everything and then it suddenly hit us, the reason why a Pochette is the size that it is so that it's the same size as the bow. And the bow is the same bow that you'd play on a proper violin if you're doing dance stuff. And the way that you've got to imagine it is that everybody in France in the court has got these incredibly tight costumes. The rudest thing that I could do to you if we're French is, instead of sticking two fingers up at you or whatever, is to actually raise my elbow sharply in your direction. Because it means, it means eff you so much that I'm actually willing to rip my, my costume in order to, in order to show my anger towards you. So that's how the courtiers dress, the musicians dress the same way. It's like, like, in like those Shakespeare things where they rip their shirts off, like, Like that.

Pretty much, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you know, all stuff is so expensive, but you're absolutely corseted into these things. If you, if you think about, you know, kind of having your elbows down against your rib cage and trying to play a violin that way. on both, on both sides. And then here's the thing. If you, if you let your, your wrists go upwards so that your thumb sits nicely on the hair, then actually get this very staccatoish playing position where you've got short notes, you've got a lot of tension. Rather like playing a viola da gamba, in the way that the bow is twisted onto the string. And it just, each note is explosive and short. And you look at this early French stuff, and it's often got a drum, and you've got the same staccato that the drum is able to give you. Just, you know, short, tight notes. And so everything came together. And then the icing on the cake was the very few images that we saw, had people so close together that you couldn't stick your, you just couldn't stick your elbow in somebody else's face because, because there's not the room to do it. So it all, it all sort of magically came together that, you know, there's a really specific idea. And even an idea to, to the point that, you know, We know that the French had a unique sound and that, you know, this was something which was highly revered. But we also know, I mean, the Talbot manuscript in England in the 1690s, 1710s, it actually gives two measurements for a dance bow and a dance flute. Sonata bow. And, you know, I can bet you that Lully and his mates, after an exhausting night doing, doing, uh, you know, French court music, probably just loosened off their blouses, went down to the pub, picked up their sonata bows, and really let rip the way that they wanted to, because this was the difference.

But this is what I think emerges out of You know, right out of that start.

Emily Brayshaw, fashion historian.

Yeah, so the, the, the King's 24 violins, they would have, um, livery. They had that paid for them. Yes. Um, I don't, maybe they had wigs. Yeah, they would have. They would have definitely had wigs, um, their shoes, everything. So what's interesting with livery too is that, um, in a lot of these eras, It was, uh, super expensive, so if you could afford to dress all your servants in livery, you would often do it in these luxury fabrics. But what, uh, we, we have examples that, uh, extend in museums. What would happen though is they would deliberately cut them and make them. Um, so by cut, I mean like pattern and construction and stuff to be outside what was fashionable. And that meant that the servants, uh, Couldn't wear them on their days off. So you had to wear your livery because, you know, otherwise you'd be there in the tavern or whatever. And it's like, oh, you're going out in your work clothes.

Yeah. It was like a uniform.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you're paying for these specific garments as well. Closer to home, opera was taking off like a frog in a sock. Forget the French and their ballet, the Italians had opera and all the trimmings that came with it. And so, work was plentiful. Girolamo was happily working away in the knowledge that one day this prestigious workshop would be his. Cremona had by this time been under Habsburg Spanish occupation for three generations. Foreign taxes were high and the town's once prosperous and internationally renowned textile industry was in decline. Nicolo Amati continued to be the sought after maestro and workshop assistants came and went. Some spoke the Cremonese dialect, others Paduan, and a few even came from Germanic countries. Antonio Stradivari and Giovanni Battista Rogeri were never recorded as apprentices in the census, living in the Amati household, but if they were locals, they would not have needed to be lodged with the master. They may have learnt under Nicolo in the Amati workshop, and that would be a logical explanation for their making style. In all, Nicolo Amati had about 18 apprentices over a 40 year period and mostly from other instrument making cities such as Padua, Bologna, Milan, and Venice. Those who could would return to their homes and continue making in the Amati style, transforming it into a standard or school of making.

Girolamo Amati II assisted his aging father until about 1670, when Nicolo Amati was in his mid seventies Leaving his son to continue working without him, but still using the Nicolo Amati label. He would do this over the next 14 years until his father's death. in 1684. Niccolo Amati's instruments around this time are most likely the work of Girolamo Amati II, but to know for sure, you would need an expert.

When Nicolo Amati was 79 years old, he was still a wealthy man. His daughter Teresa married and he provided her with a 5, 000 lira dowry. To compare with his colleague Andrea Guarneri, when his daughter married, he was only able to give a 1, 300 lira for her dowry. So there. In 1677, Girolamo II was now 28 years old. He married the 14 year old Angela Caritoni, and in the following years, they would have two daughters and a son. Some historians think she could have been older, which would make it a little less creepy. But in any case, Girolamo's story is a bit of a sad one. When Nicolo Amati died in 1684 at the age of 87, things started falling apart. Instruments with Girolamo Amati II label after his father's death are rare. The following year. His wife, Angela, died, and then two years later, his three year old son, also called Nicolo Amati, tragically passes away. His wife and son are buried close by, in the monastery of Corpus Christi, where his eldest daughter will soon begin her novitiate. He seems to have lost his enthusiasm for work. His family were dying, the market for violins was not great, well, not for him anyway. Antonio Stradivari, who had bought a house just around the corner from theirs a few years before his father died, looked like he was doing just fine. And then there were the Guarneri's, also taking whatever business that was left over, leaving him with practically nothing.

Carlo Chiesa, expert and violin maker in Milan.

We know that, uh, Girolamo Amati II was a very good maker, I like as a maker, but, uh, He had, uh, you know

rivalry.

Yeah, rivalry. He had some people working next door to him in the same, the same block, not just the same neighborhood, but in the same block. And their names were Giuseppe Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari.I'm not sure I would be happy to have Antonio Stradivari working close to me. And that was the situation.

Before that, the Amatis were the only workshop in Cremona. So their economic success was, of course. Also from the fact that they were the only workshop in the year 1690, if you were to take a walk in the parish of San Fustino down one particular street, you would pass the well known Amati house and workshop. Keep going, and you would be at the casa Guarneri a little further on Lived and Antonio Stradivari, who was still working in the Amati style, but really starting to make a name for himself, all open for business. What a street. In a relatively small city, that is a lot of competition. And Girolamo Amati II just seemed to sink. He quickly spiralled into debt. He had a brilliant plan with one of his brothers to try and sell some of the family's property and goods to pay off said debt. But another brother, Dom Nicolo Amati, obviously appalled that they were running the family business into the ground and then trying to save the sinking ship by selling off the family silver was incensed enough to take them to court and commence bankruptcy proceedings against them. Girolamo and his brother even owed money to one of the Stradivari boys. The family's fortunes had definitely turned. Benjamin Hebbert. So I think the story there is, it's almost a story more of Stradivari. And I've, I found a wonderful quote by a guy called Edward Chamberlain in 1683, which is just the year before Nicola Amati dies. And he says, uh, that Cremona violins have not been fetching the prices that they did previously. And it's not a very big quote, but it's like, you know, unfortunately, you know, we've been claiming that Cremonese violins have never, never lost value since they were made. And in 1683, there's an Englishman who's complaining that he can't get the price for them. There's a guy a few years later in about 17 Around 1710, William Corbett, who travels to Cremona, does a deal with Stradivari, brings a load of instruments for the London market, and has to return them all because no one's prepared to pay the prices. And I think there's a lot of economic stuff that's going on. You know, you've got the problem that your biggest competition is your own second hand residual market. By 1684, when Nicolò Amati dies, there's a heck of a lot of second hand instruments on the market. And you've got to kind of ask why, why bother make another violin at that point. And so Girolamo kind of limps through, but I think limps through because, I mean, I'm sure that the Amatis ran a guild in every sense of the word, because anything that you do, in Italy at that time, is run by a guild. So although there's no formality about any guilds existing, let's be clear about that. You know, here's the head honcho, and he's able to sort of control what everybody else does. And there's this, there's this guy called Stradivari, who is precocious. He makes these decorated instruments, even when, when Nicolo Amati is alive, which are taking the decorative aspect of an instrument to a far greater level. And I think he's probably able to do that because maybe Girolamo Amati II isn't very interested. Niccolo Amati, knows he's getting old and it's like, look, you know, the market's done. It's over. If you think you can make a difference, make a difference. You know, well done you. You know, you see Rooker's harpsichords with been and done by the 1660s. Bolognese lutes were been and done by the 1580s. You know, it keeps on going, you know, things have a cycle. And I think Stradivari is already there to say, I'm going to beat the cycle.

Yeah. So, okay. So you had that lull in the market before. Exactly. And then Stradivari kind of. He's already sort of going, well, I think he's seeing the lull in the market, he's seeing an opportunity for himself, and he's creating things which are more decorative than anything else before because he thinks that there is a market, he can pick up new buyers, he can put himself at that, you know, at the front position of the Cremonese market, and he can largely do that because Girolamo Amati II isn't interested, it doesn't really matter what Nicolo Amati says because Nicolo's already very old. When he passes, Stradivari will be able to do his thing. Maybe things don't whittle off as badly as we think they do, because actually, Girolamo Amati II has the biggest, you know, he's got the biggest access to the second hand market. So, quite what he does. I feel, you know, I tend to feel that my colleagues who research this are very, very reluctant to speculate about what the second hand market might be, and we just think of people purely as craftsmen. But instruments from the 1630s wouldn't exist till now unless someone in the 1680s was taking care of them, let alone at any other time. And to me that, you know, that's got to be a very clear part of, part of, uh, the history. And that gives him a new market. So Girolamo Amati disappears off into the wilderness and then, you know, we don't know what he did. He probably had a super successful career. Violin de la Correa, but you know, that's not sexy or romantic. And then he, once he's sort of sold too many of them or whatever, he comes back and starts being a maker again, as far as I see it.

Aged nearly 50, Girolamo Amati II, drowning in debt, left Cremona. The year was 1700, and Stradivari was about to enter his golden period of production. It would be another 20 years before Girolamo Amati II returned to Cremona. His motives for leaving were probably varied, and no one knows for sure why he left town. What we do know is that he appears to have left his family, the workshop and the network of instrument makers who undoubtedly benefited from knowing his father, one of the most important teachers in the history of violin making. Where he went was Piacenza, around 40km west of Cremona, a small town near Parma where The local count commissioned various instruments from him between 1700 and 1715. During Girolamo's absence, the city saw many changes, which included Antonio Stradivari's workshop becoming the most dominant and financially successful force in Cremona. In 1707, the Habsburg Spanish occupation lost its power to the Austrian Empire, so Austrian soldiers soon occupied the town. Again. Over the last 150 years, the city's population had halved from 40, 000 to 20, 000 people. In 1705 and the next year in 1706, the Poe flooded multiple times and the crops were ruined. There was disease and armies were back in town. Things were pretty miserable. Girolamo Amati does eventually make his way back to Cremona around 1717. The family home was now in the hands of one of Nicolo Amati’s daughters, Then was handed down to Girolamo's second daughter. Notice that the Amati ladies are not trusting the Amati men with the house.

Emily Brayshaw.

Yeah. And then there's, this is this kind of handover, Nicolo Amati ends up having another son called Girolamo Amati II, who is the last in the Amati dynasty. And it's sort of, his life is a little bit sad and it's a bit of a, he fizzles out really with Girolamo. But at the same time, you have this, you have Andrea Amati and Uh, Antonio Stradivari is five years older than Girolamo Amati. They're sort of the same, they're the same generation and they probably went to the same school because these children did go to a local school to learn to read and write. They would have known each other really. So you have this, it's sort of across that you can see the curve of the Amatis going down and then you have this other curve of all this, this group of Cremonese makers taking off, sort of thanks to Nicolo Amati, you've got The Guarneri family, the Ruggeri family, uh, Stradivari, uh, and it's sort of an explosion of instrument making in Cremona at this time.

Yeah, okay. And that is in, so Strad was, wasn't he 1644, I think? To 1737. Sorry, he would be 40, 50, 60, in like the 1660s, 1670s. You could imagine that's where he was, um, you know, a young man about town. Yeah. And he'd be wearing You know, he'd be wearing the same thing that Girolamo Amati would be wearing. Yeah, definitely.

So. Um, so it's the fashion from the second half of the 15th century of tradesmen. Was it, and that would have been quite different to nobles as well. Well, again, again, they did follow the same cut. And they did follow the same silhouette as the nobility. But without the spangles. They didn't, well, they just didn't have as much bling, you know, like, um, and they didn't have all the money, all the time to be able to spend. So, you know, their dress is a little bit more sober, a little bit more professional. Um, you know, we've talked about black, for example. But they, so, but they want, when they would go to the opera as well, they would be this kind of class that's kind of in between ish. Nicolo's mother was actually, um, his father's second wife and she was from sort of the lower gentry. Her, she was called, um, Laura Medici Lazzarini. And so. She's thought to be a distant cousin of the banking Medici's and she was the niece of a prominent nobleman. So you have, I find that interesting. You have this, the social position of the Amati family was such that it was possible for him to marry into. Sort of these wealthier families. Yeah, there's another strata. Yeah, look, and certainly, you know, we do sort of have, um, different classes as well. It's not just the super wealthy and the super poor, you know, we've got increasing merchant classes and, um, maker classes and master craftsmen and again sort of with dress, you know, they are going to be dressing very well. They'll, they'll, have servants themselves and they'll be dressing better than the servants again and they'll certainly be keeping an eye on the latest fashions and trends and because they are moving in these worlds with the super wealthy. By the token to the super wealthy don't expect that these people will be as well dressed as they are either. As long as you're dressing well, you're not expected to be like dripping with pearls like the queen or some of these mind bogglingly wealthy royal dukes and these sorts of people. Yeah, but and I'm thinking maybe in, um, in society they would overlap. So, so maybe there was also this, uh, like a way of speaking and a way, the way of, um, interacting they would.

They're in this sort of middle area where they're dealing with. Yeah, I feel like there is. You certainly have to show difference. That goes without saying, I think though that technical discussions, like people like, um, you know, the Duke Gonzaga, for example, he's, he's a cultured man, right? These are really cultured people and they want to be talking and having these discussions about art and music. And so there will be seeking out the experts to converse with, to have these discussions as well as. Running state, making diplomatic connections. Girolamo Amati II. He comes home an old man and at the age of 70 in 1719 and makes his last surviving violin. In the years following, the city of Cremona is once again affected by yet another war involving the French.

In 1733, 12, 000 French troops were garrisoned in Cremona who had a population of 30, 000. This weighed hugely on local resources and sent prices soaring. The city looked fondly back at the relative law and order provided by the Spanish compared with this new French army. Cremona's economy plodded on nevertheless. Music was still highly regarded into the mix of dance teachers, instrument makers, textile merchants, junk dealers, moneylenders, printers, booksellers, and jewelers, fur merchants, and of course, shoemakers. The French did eventually leave town, and a few years after this, Girolamo Amati II died in relative poverty in February of 1740 at the age of 90, nonetheless.

We don't know of any instruments from this later period. It is thought that he was suffering from mental illness and with no male heirs to carry on the trade, the story of the Amatis ends. Although this is the end of one violin making family, great though they were, this is in fact only the beginning of another exciting chapter in the violin. While Girolamo Amati lay dying, a golden period is about to burst forth in Cremona, and the end of the Amati story is really the beginning of one of Cremona's most industrious and golden periods of violin making ever in its history. It's the story of Stradivari, of Guarneri. When we talk about great Cremonese masters, it starts now. This is the period people are talking about, and the story will get a whole lot more complex because there are a lot of people to keep up with. Are you ready? Well, I hope you are because now we're going to be looking at many, many masters, and I hope you'll stay with me for the next episodes of the Violin Chronicles.

I'd like to say a big thank you to my guests, Dr. Emily Brayshaw, Benjamin Hebbert, and Carlo Chiesa. 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.

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