Cremona, famous for its violins since the sixteenth century, is today considered the international centre of stringed instruments. Students from all over the world: Japan, Canada, Hungary, Switzerland, U.S.A. attend the five-year course at the “Scuola Internazionale di Liuteria” to become Stradivarius’heirs. Often, after having finished their studies, they move to this charming town to open their own workshops, perpetuating the traditions of the great masters. Visiting Cremona and its workshops is an unforgettable experience which enriches the visitor who is suddendly plunged into a unique world. Entering the ateliers you are welcomed by the baroque music which accompanies their work and takes you into a magical and surreal atmosphere.The tools and the smell of the wood and resins take you back three hundred years. You can easily imagine Antonio Stradivarius concentrating on creating one of his longed for violins transforming two rough flitches of wood into an instrument whose sound is still today incomparable.The heritage of the great masters Amati, Stradivarius, Guarneri “del Gesù” can be intensively felt. They all left such an intense historical energy which makes them seem still alive and present; their gestures and tools have not varied very much. Nobody actually invented the violin, the instrument transformation began with Andrea Amati in the first half of the sixteenth century. He had already determined precise rules for the dimensions and proportions using the techniques and knowledge of his time. But it was only in the second half of the seventeenth century that we reached an almost insuperable precision with Antonio Stradivarius and Guarneri “del Gesù”. None of them ever limited themselves to reproducing the same instrument twice. Stradivarius incessantly experimented new theories, revising the measurements of the soundbox and working on the arching of the back and top, so increasing the sonority of the instrument to achieve perfection.  (More) ...