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Amati is the name of a family of Italian violin makers, who flourished at Cremona from about 1549 to 1740.

Family members

Andrea Amati

Andrea Amati (ca. 1505 – ca. 1578) was the earliest maker of violins whose instruments still survive today. Indeed he seems more or less responsible for giving the instruments of the modern violin family their definitive profile. A small number of his instruments survive, dated between the years of 1500 and 1574 and most bearing the coat of arms of Charles IX of France. His work is marked by great elegance and an awareness of geometrical principles in design. ^[1]

Antonio and Girolamo Amati

Andrea Amati was succeeded by his sons Antonio Amati (born ca. 1550) and Girolamo Amati (1551–1635). "The Brothers Amati", as they were known, implemented far-reaching innovations in design, including the perfection of the shape of the f-holes. They are also thought to have pioneered the modern alto format of viola, in contrast to older tenor violas.

Nicolo Amati

Nicolò Amati (December 3, 1596 – April 12, 1684) was the son of Girolamo Amati. He was the most eminent of the family. He improved the model adopted by the rest of the Amatis and produced instruments capable of yielding greater power of tone. His pattern was unusually small, but he also made a wider model now known as the "Grand Amati", which have become his most sought-after violins.

Of his pupils, the most famous were Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, the first of the Guarneri family of violin makers. (There is much controversy regarding the apprenticeship of Antonio Stradivari. While Stradivari's first known violin states that he was a pupil of Amati, the validity of his statement is questioned.)

Girolamo Amati (Hieronymus II)

The last maker of the family was Nicolo's son, Girolamo Amati, known as Hieronymus II (February 26, 1649 – February 21, 1740). Although he improved on the arching of his father's instruments, by and large they are inferior and no match for the greatest maker of his day, Antonio Stradivari.

Extant Amati instruments

One of a group of seven Andrea Amati violins, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, believed to have been created in 1558, which would make it one of the earliest known violins in existence.

• Amati instruments at the (University of South Dakota, US) National Music Museum:
  • Andrea Amati:
    • Cello, "The King", circa 1545, the world's oldest extant cello
    • Viola, 1560
    • Violin, 1560
    • Violin, 1574
  • Girolamo Amati:
    • Violin, 1604
    • Violin, 7/8-size, 1609
    • Violino piccolo, 1613
  • Nicolò Amati:
    • Violin, 1628
• Amati instruments at the (New York, US) Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Andrea Amati:
    • Violin, ca. 1560
  • Nicolò Amati:
    • Violin, 1669

In popular culture

• In the manga and anime series Gunslinger Girl, the child assassins often conceal their weapons by carrying them in Amati violin cases.
• Patrick O'Brian's fictional British sea captain Jack Aubrey is described as owning a "fiddle far above his station, an Amati no less," in The Surgeon's Mate

See also

• Antonio Stradivari
• Amati Quartet
• Luthier

References

• This article incorporates text from the article "Amati" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Dilworth, John (1992) "The Violin and Bow-Origins and Development" in: The Cambridge Companion to the Violin; ed. Robin Stowell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; pp. 1–29.

External links

• Andrea Amati: Violin, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art