Liutai Italiani del Novecento nelle collezioni del Museo del Violino
While, beyond the Alps, Giuseppe Fiorini was reaching the peak of a research path that had led him back to Stradivari, in Bologna and its surroundings a similar approach was being followed by other pupils of his father Raffaele: the Candi brothers, who soon moved to Genoa, Augusto Pollastri, Armando Monterumici and all those who gravitated around him, particularly Carlo Carletti who started the Centopievese School.
All these makers continued to use the external mould and, while re-interpreting classical models, they all developed their own strong personal traits, reaching conclusions that were fairly different from those that Ansaldo Poggi’s master had elaborated in Rome. Unfortunately, these different methods have been long considered, in the previous century, as “set-apart violin making” – and this idea even reached Cremona in the 1980s. Today, as time has passed it is instead easier to note that both approaches originated from the same source: the passion for working again on individual styles, without which violin making could not have continued as an artistic craft.
Following this example affected by the Art Nouveau spirit, Augusto Pollastri elaborated a model of his own that is now famous all over the world; his work was later continued by his brother Gaetano, while Ansaldo Poggi, carrying on in Bologna the “lesson of Stradivari” as developed by Giuseppe Fiorini – who himself was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement – by the end of the 1920s began to reap the benefits of his previous valuable experience; after World War II, Poggi partially changed the method he had learned from his master with the aim of making increasingly better and distinctive instruments which are still appreciated today.
(written by Roberto Regazzi)