CREMONA FOR UNESCO

CREMONA VIOLIN-MAKING TRADITION - INTANGIBLE WORLD HERITAGEView Repeats

The historical decision was taken in Paris by UNESCO on December 5th, 2012: Cremona violin-making tradition is registered in the Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

After a route started on January 2007, in the Spring of 2011 Cremona submitted an application for the registration of its violin-making tradition in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.  The whole town, its institutions, its citizens were informed and involved in the project.  Among many important Italian candidates, Cremona was chosen as the sole candidate for our Country for 2012 and its application was eventually accepted.

It’s a great result first of all for Cremona and its own territory, for its centenarian violin-making tradition, but especially for the people who during these years have engaged themselves through a hard and scrupulous work where knowledge was combined with passion. In a time in which so many figures of excellence compete for international limelight, Cremona acted with the typical dedication of its people, carrying on the prestige of its violin-making tradition, so to keep and pass it on to future generations and to see it recognized by UNESCO as an heritage which is not only Italian but of the whole World. And it got a successful result. Since now and even more than before, Cremona typical violin-making art will characterize our town all over the world and will be a source of pride for Italy.

There are heritages composed of traditional knowledge and skills that after centuries remain untouched in their essence. One of them is the violin-making art and Cremona is its capital. Here the unique skill to create absolutely wonderful stringed bowed instruments forms the basis of a well-defined identity which - following a tradition of an extremely high-level craftsmanship - grounds its roots in the late Renaissance and arrives up to our days. In past times, the instruments made in Cremona determined the evolution of the Western musical culture and they are still accompanying its highest expressions.

Violin-making art developed in Cremona in the 16th century  with Andrea Amati, went on with other members of his family , then with the Guarneris ed  in the 18th century with the most famous of all violin-makers, Antonio Stradivari; today’s violin-makers are preserving this extraordinary tradition.  The typical feature of Cremona violin-making art is the skillful ability to realize the shape of the stringed bow instrument, mainly the violin, according to the excellence criteria established by the creativity and skill of the great “maestros” of the past, through exclusively manual procedures and a deep knowledge about materials and working techniques: a knowledge passed on from “maestros”  to pupils, often from father to son, and refined by the practice. 

Along the centuries violin-making art has greatly affected the profile of the town and defined its identity. The violin has become a symbol inevitably connected with the name of Cremona, giving the town an image of cultural and artistic excellence. In Cremona there are presently 141 specialized workshops -  93 of them are Italian, 71 of “maestros” from Cremona , and 48 are of foreigner “maestros”,  25 of which from non-EU countries. Together with these workshops, the Violin-Making International School represents  the core of this art where Italian and foreign students can explore the charming possibilities of matter and sound trhrough technique, experience and skill.  Here the practice is always supported by a sound cultural education, so to reinforce the students’  belief that only a deep knowledge of the past and a structured technique allow to explore modern times in a cultured way and to engage themselves in innovative projects.

Moreover, the presence of a prestigious collection of historical instruments and tools is a good reason to be proud: among them, the collection of “Stringed bow instruments of Palazzo Comunale" (including instruments by Andrea Amati, Antonio and Girolamo Amati, Nicolò Amati, Francesco Ruggeri, Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri son of Andrea and his son Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù) and the Stradivari Museum, which exhibits among the other things the armamentarium of Antonio Stradivari’s workshop (drawings, models, shapes, tools).

Violin-makers acquire their workmanship also through the study of both antique and new instruments, exchanging information, observing their peers’ gestures and habits. In addition a constant dialogue is essential, as well as a constructive discussion with many musicians from every part of the world  coming to Cremona in search of instruments tailored on their specific needs, or to give their precious instruments into the skillful hands of “maestros” specialized in the art of old instrument restoration and repair. In this way, the heritage of knowledge and skills, which has been formed through the centuries, finds the lifeblood which allows its preservation  and enrichment.

Behind each instrument there is a skill resulting from learning and training which cannot be transmitted by writing. It is a craft process that founds its natural centre of development and growth in Cremona, supported by public and private institutions, which have contributed to give an impulse to this unique heritage.

The now largely diffused awareness of the exceptional character of Cremona violin-making art places Cremona at the centre of an international network of pupils, violin-makers, purchasers, musicians, violin lovers and Italian and foreign tourists. UNESCO’s acknowledgment will certainly increase this international exchange and will give a new impulse to a more and more changing and transforming reality, also thanks to the opening of the Violin Museum next Spring.  This new Museum will tell about violin origin and history, the instrument construction techniques, the most important facts of violin-maker families in Cremona. In the meanwhile, it will exhibit - inside a single complex - the rich set of masterpieces formed of collections presently set in different buildings all around the town.

In the last decades Cremona violin-making art, thanks to the prospectiveness  and the initiative of numerous protagonists, has been able to take advantage from a more and more intense exchange with the realities of other Countries. In this way, a centenarian tradition based on the creativity of the great violin-makers of past times, transmitted through immaterial procedures and skills, has turned into a cultural richness. Cremona intends not to disperse it, but to preserve it, to bear witness to its history and to use it as a vital device of its future development.