CREMONA 3Ts and CELEBRATED VIOLINS

Recently, one of the world's rarest musical instruments, known as the Joachim Ma violin, came under the auctioneer's hammer and was sold for $11.25 m, just under the record price paid for the Lady Blunt Stradivarius in 2011, which fetched $15.9 m.

These unique string instruments, which all have individual names usually alluding to previous owners, were all made in Cremona (Lombardy) by celebrated luthier families. For five centuries, they have never been surpassed in quality, making Cremona the undisputed capital of violins, violas, cellos and double basses as created by the families Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari. In his day, Stradivari alone created over 1100 violins and violas and over 80 cellos, an estimated 500 of which have survived, mainly in museums and private collections.

The wider world knows Cremona as the home of violins, but Cremona itself focusses on other characteristics. It calls itself the city of the three “Ts”...turon, turas and tetas. In local dialect these stand respectively for torrone (the nougat confection invented in 1441 for the wedding feast of the heirs of the two most powerful local families – Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti, and now a standard Christmas treat), turas for the 112m high Torrazza Bell Tower (one of the tallest steeples in Europe), while the third - “tetas”- is an allusion to the charms of the local women.

A splendid preserved art city, Cremona is little visited by tourists, except for the Violin Museum which displays a collection of the world's most precious musical instruments as well as “a luthier's workshop”, where visitors can observe skilled craftsmen creating string instruments in the traditional way.

M.Stenhouse

Info: Tel. Museo del Violino +39.0372.801801/080809 https://museodelviolino.org