Wendelin Tieffenbrucker (German, active 1570–1610)
Lute, late 16th century
Yew, spruce, ebony, maple; 22 1/16 in. (56 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Freedman, by exchange, 1989 (1989.13)

The word luthier is derived from the French word luth, or lute. One of the first centers of lutherie was in Bavaria, in and around the town of Füssen, where there were several families of active makers by the late fifteenth century and a guild was established in 1562. Many Bavarian luthiers moved to cities in northern Italy to escape guild restrictions as well as a series of wars in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In Italy they found large markets for their products and easier access to exotic materials, including ivory, ebony, and snakewood. Italian cities such as Venice and Padua became renowned for their stringed instruments, especially lutes, which were often highly decorated. German luthiers remained active in Italy through the end of the eighteenth century.

The Tieffenbrucker family was one of the most important dynasties of luthiers. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the family moved from the Bavarian village of Tieffenbruck to Venice; they were active there as well as in nearby Padua, where Wendelin Tieffenbrucker worked. This lute, built as a bass instrument, originally had eight or ten courses and was modified in the eighteenth century to thirteen courses. The back is made of thirty-seven bicolor yew ribs.

David Tecchler (Austrian, 1666–1747)
Archlute, ca. 1725
Spruce, ebony, ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl; 70 3/4 in. (179.7 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Clara Mertens Bequest, in memory of André Mertens, 1988 (1988.87)

David Tecchler moved from Augsburg to Rome before 1700 and became the most important luthier of his generation in that city. He is best known for his instruments of the violin family; this Tecchler lute is the only one that survives. It is a Roman archlute, a local variant of the long-necked lute, which became popular after the invention of the chitarrone in Florence about 1585. The instrument has six double courses of strings and eight unfretted diatonic bass strings.

Andrea Amati (Italian, ca. 1505–1578)
Violin, ca. 1559
Spruce, maple, ebony; 7 15/16 x 22 5/8 in. (20.2 x 57.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Robert Alonzo Lehman Bequest, 1999 (1999.26)

Andrea Amati developed the modern form of the violin in Cremona by the mid-sixteenth century. He was the first member of the famous Cremonese school of lutherie, which included several generations of his own family, the Guarneris, and Antonio Stradivari. Other traditions of lutherie also developed in northern Italian cities such as Brescia and Milan.

This decorated violin bears the Latin motto Quo unico propugnaculo stat stabitque religio (By this bulwark alone religion stands and will stand) on its ribs and has the remains of decoration on its back, including fleurs-de-lis in the corners. Recent scholarship suggests that this instrument may have been a part of a set made as a gift for the marriage of Philip II of Spain to Elisabeth Valois in 1559.

Matteo Sellas (German, ca. 1599–1654)
Guitar, ca. 1630–50
Spruce, bone, parchment, snakewood, ivory; 10 9/16 x 37 5/8 in. (26.9 x 95.6 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Clara Mertens Bequest, in memory of André Mertens, 1990 (1990.103)

Besides the lute family, many other plucked stringed instruments were produced in the northern Italian schools in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The guitars of the time, now called Baroque guitars, were smaller than later instruments and had five courses (pairs) of gut strings tuned in unison, or octaves, and had gut frets tied to the neck. Nearly all the surviving Baroque guitars are extraordinarily decorated with exotic materials and many have parchment rosettes in their sound holes.

This five-course guitar has a vaulted back with scalloped snakewood ribs and ivory spacers. The back of the neck is inlaid with bone and snakewood squares in a checkerboard pattern. The Sellas family (active in Venice during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries) was noted for its highly ornamented lutes and guitars.

Giacomo (Jacob) Ertel (German, ca. 1646–1711)
Guitar, late 17th century
Spruce, ebony, fruitwood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl; 8 x 23 in. (20.3 x 58.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Rogers Fund, Mrs. Peter Nicholas, University of Chicago Club of New York, Mrs. Henry J. Heinz II and Lowell S. Smith and Sally Sanford Gifts, The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, by exchange, and funds from various donors, 1984 (1984.225)

The back and sides of this guitar are decorated with checkerboard patterns of bone, ebony, and fruitwood that continue up the back of the neck. The peghead, fingerboard, and top are inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Formerly converted to a six-string guitar, this instrument was later restored to its original five-course configuration.

Antonio Stradivari (Italian, 1644–1737)
Guitar, The Rawlins, 1700
Spruce, maple, ebony; 10 7/16 x 3 11/16 x 35 15/16 in. (26.5 x 9.3 x 91.3 cm)
National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota, Vermillion

The Rawlins is one of four known surviving guitars made by the famous Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari. These instruments are unusual among extant Baroque guitars because of their lack of decoration, but they are probably more typical of the guitars created at the time. Stradivari used the same woods for his guitars—spruce for the top and maple for the sides and back—as he did for his violins. His guitars are the oldest surviving examples using these woods, which are standard for modern archtop guitars and mandolins.

Antonio Stradivari (Italian, 1644–1737)
Violin, The Antonius, 1711
Spruce, maple, ebony; 8 x 23 in. (20.3 x 58.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Annie Bolton Matthews Bryant, 1933 (34.86.1 a)

Built by the most famous of all luthiers, Antonio Stradivari, The Antonius dates to his golden period, about 1700 to 1720. The violin’s body has an arched (carved) top and back. Internally, the instrument has a bass bar that runs vertically on the underside of the top (or belly) and a sound post to transmit vibrations from the top to the back. The violin has distinctive f-shaped sound holes and four strings that are played with a bow.

Stradivari has long been thought to have been an apprentice of Nicolò Amati, but census documents do not list Stradivari as a garzone (shop boy) in the Amati household. Stradivari’s early instruments do show the stylistic influence of the Amati, but as Girolamo II and Nicolò were the principal makers in Cremona during Stradivari’s formative years, it would be natural for Stradivari to have been influenced by their work. Antonio Stradivari worked with two of his sons, Francesco (1671–1743) and Omobono (1679–1742), and today more than six hundred instruments survive from this prodigious workshop. Stradivari experimented with the shape and arching of the violin. Stradivari employed flatter arching than his predecessors, and this contributed to the production of a more powerful tone.

Johannes Florenus Guidantus (Italian, 1687–1760)
Viola d’amore, 18th century
Spruce, maple, ebony; 7 15/16 x 22 5/8 in. (20.2 x 57.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Amati Gifts, 2009 (2009.41)

The viola d’amore, or viola “of love,” is a bowed stringed instrument which gained great popularity in the eighteenth century. Much of its history, including the derivation of its name, is unknown. It has many characteristics of the viol family such as a flat back, ribs that are flush with the top and back, and a rosette in addition to sound holes. Yet, like a violin, it is unfretted and held under the chin while played. Violas d’amore typically have seven playing strings, though instruments with other numbers of strings are not unusual. Perhaps the most distinguishable characteristic of the eighteenth-century viola d’amore is the presence of sympathetic strings, which are not played but located behind the bowed strings and vibrate “in sympathy.” The sympathetic strings contribute to produce a tone that is clear and often described as “silvery,” as well as creating a more resonant sound with a longer decay. The viola d’amore was popular with eighteenth-century composers and can be found in the works of J. S. Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Haydn, and Locatelli.

This festooned viola d’amore survives in its unaltered, original condition. This example has seven playing strings that are bowed, and behind the tailpiece and fingerboard are seven sympathetic strings that ring “in sympathy” with the bowed strings. Violas d’amore often have carved figural heads, usually with either a blindfold or shut eyes—a reference to the adage “love is blind.”

Giuseppe Presbler (German, 1760–1801)
Mandolin and Mandola, 1796, 1797
Both: rosewood, spruce, walnut, bone, mother-of-pearl; mandolin: L. 22 3/16 in. (56.3 cm); mandola: L. 35 13/16 in. (91 cm);
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Mark Willcox, in memory of Jane Byrd Radcliffe Whitehead, 1989 (1989.344.1, 1989.344.2)

The Milanese style mandolin has six pairs of strings, like the older versions. This example (shown at left) by Giuseppe Presbler has a bowlback made of seventeen rosewood ribs separated by bone striping. The beautiful rosette is of parchment and veneer and ringed with mother-of-pearl ornaments in black mastic.

The mandola, made as a part of a matched set with the mandolin, is tuned an octave lower than the mandolin. Its rosewood back is made of nineteen ribs separated by bone striping and it also bears a decorative rosette ringed with mother-of-pearl ornaments in black mastic.

Alessandro Gagliano (Italian, 1640–1730)
Violin, 1704
Spruce, maple, ebony; 7 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. (19.7 x 62.5 cm)
Private Collection

Alessandro Gagliano is believed to have spent considerable time learning the craft of lutherie in Cremona, perhaps in the Amati workshop. About 1700 he returned to his native Naples, where he established his own business and became the first member of his violin-making dynasty. This example has a stunning two-piece back and his distinctive f-holes that are slightly broader and more upright than typical Cremonese examples.

Joseph Gagliano (Italian, active 1770–1800)
Viola d’amore, ca. 1780
Spruce, maple, ebony; 10 7/16 x 3 11/16 x 35 15/16 in. (26.5 x 9.3 x 91.3 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of H. H. Schambach, 1981 (1981.480)

Joseph Gagliano was a member of the third generation of the Gagliano family, who made stringed instruments, primarily bowed, in Naples. This viola d’amore, typical of the late eighteenth century, has six sympathetic strings that are not played but ring in “sympathy” with the six main bowed strings.

Antonio Vinaccia (Italian, active 1754–1781)
Mandolin, 1781
Spruce, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, gold alloy, ivory; L. 23 in. (58.4 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments, 1889 (89.4.2140)

In the mid-eighteenth century, several regional variations of the mandolin developed in Italy, the most important being the one from Naples. The Neapolitan mandolin, probably designed by a member of the Vinaccia family, has a cant (bend) below the bridge that gives the instrument greater strength. The four pairs of strings are tuned to the pitches of a violin and the instrument is played with a plectrum. It became an indispensable part of nineteenth-century Neapolitan culture.

In the late nineteenth century, a mandolin craze swept the United States, and to fill the market thousands of instruments were imported from mandolin makers in southern Italy.

This early Neapolitan mandolin is among the most decorated examples of its kind. The back is made of twenty-three narrow fluted strips of tortoiseshell with ebony and ivory spacers. The sides are elaborately decorated with tortoiseshell molding and floral paintings on a gilt ground. The soundboard is decorated with inlaid mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, and gold alloy.

Guitar, ca. 1800
Spruce, ebony, ivory, tortoiseshell; 10 7/16 x 3 11/16 in. (26.5 x 9.3 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1969 (69.29)

This highly decorated guitar is unusual for the time it was built and recalls more decorated Baroque instruments, yet it was originally constructed with six strings, which dates it about 1800. The back bears an image of the Neapolitan composer Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816), whose operatic works were a favorite of nineteenth-century guitarists.

A second guitar, now in the Yale University Collection, bears nearly the identical decoration of the Metropolitan example, except in reverse coloration (see images: front and back). The valuable materials used to decorate these instruments, ebony and ivory, were stacked in sheets and the decoration cut at the same time through both. This allowed the builder to fit together the opposing colored pieces to create the intricate decoration while efficiently doubling the output.

Gennaro Fabricatore (Italian, 1790–1843)
Guitar, 1819
Spruce, maple, ebony, mother-of-pearl, ivory; 7 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. (19.7 x 62.5 cm)
Drs. Faye & Jonathan Kellerman

The six single-course guitar appeared in the late eighteenth century, and Neapolitans were among the first to adopt the form. The Fabricatore family, the most important guitar makers in Naples, standardized its decoration, with a figure-eight-shaped headstock, a deep waist, and mustaches around the bridge. This example has inlaid mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell bands around the edge of the body, fingerboard, and headstock, with multiple thin layers of ebony and ivory forming the banding on the back and sides.

Joseph Bini (American, b. Italy, ca. 1810–1877), designer; J. Howard Foote (American, 1833–1896), maker
Guitar (serial number 654), ca. 1870
Spruce, rosewood, ebony; 7 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. (19.7 x 62.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Jonathan & Faye Kellerman Foundation Gift, 2010 (2010.334)

Born in the Veneto, Joseph Bini came to the United States in 1846 to play guitar in P. T. Barnum’s American Museum, located at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in Manhattan. That year, Bini introduced a new design for a guitar bridge with a tailpiece, like a violin. Bini was the first Italian luthier to set up a workshop in New York and is listed in the Brooklyn City Directory in 1852. He later worked in Mount Vernon and built guitars with his son Antonio. In 1867 he patented an unusual bracing system based on the X system of Martin Guitars. This guitar was built using Bini’s patent by the New York manufacturer and distributor J. Howard Foote (1833–1896).

Angelo Mannello (American, b. Italy, 1858–1922)
Mandolins, ca. 1900
Spruce, tortoiseshell, ivory, metal; both approximately 7 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. (19.7 x 62.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of the family of Angelo Mannello, 1972 (1972.111.1, 1972.111.2)

These mandolins were both made by Angelo Mannello, a luthier who was born in Morcone, Italy, and moved to the United States in 1885 where he opened a workshop in the Bronx. Mannello became one of the city’s largest mandolin manufacturers, employing as many as seventy-five workers and producing thousands of mandolins each year for sale through musical instrument distributors such as C. Bruno.

The mandolin on the left is the most extravagant of Angelo Mannello’s creations; he exhibited it at musical-instrument fairs and expositions and posed with it in photographs. The back of the bowl and neck is covered with a decorative checkerboard pattern of ivory and tortoiseshell. A center band runs up the back of the mandolin culminating in a nude surrounded by putti playing instruments, grotesques, and vegetation. The top, fingerboard, and headstock are similarly inlaid with mother-of-pearl in a tortoiseshell veneer, and the maker’s name is incised in an ivory oval around the sound hole.

Nicòla Turturro (American, b. Italy 1872–1953)
Mandolira, ca. 1905
Spruce, mahogany, rosewood, tortoiseshell, celluloid, brass; 7 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. (19.7 x 62.5 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1975 (1975.357.1)

This unusual instrument evokes the form of the classical Greek lyre with the body of a mandolin. The design was patented by Turturro in 1904 and was produced by at least one other maker. The top is punctuated by two unusual oval sound holes, and the back has a hemispherical bowl of twenty-four ribs.

Luigi Mozzani (Italian, 1869–1943)
Chitarra-Lyra, or Harp Guitar, ca. 1915
Maple, spruce, ebony; 17 1/2 x 33 in. (44.5 x 83.8 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Jonathan & Faye Kellerman Foundation Gift, 2008 (2008.356)

The chitarra-lyra was a type built by the luthier Luigi Mozzani in Cento in the early twentieth century. Mozzani, a noted guitarist, copied the form from the earlier builder Friedrich Schenk, who made similar instruments as early as the 1830s. This remarkable instrument has six strings over a fretted fingerboard with three open bass strings. The floating fingerboard can be adjusted with screws that are accessible from the back of the instrument. Mozzani was the instructor of the luthier Mario Maccaferri, who would later own this guitar.

Mario Maccaferri (American, b. Italy, 1900–1993), designer; Henri Selmer Paris, maker
Guitar, Jazz model (serial number 565), 1942
Spruce, rosewood; 7 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. (19.7 x 62.5 cm)
Private Collection

Maccaferri was from Cento, Italy, where he studied instrument building with Luigi Mozzani. Trained as a guitarist at the conservatory in Siena, Maccaferri toured as a soloist throughout Europe and eventually settled in London. The instrument manufacturer Henri Selmer asked Maccaferri to create a design for a guitar that could be used in jazz music. The resulting models, created for both jazz and classical music, have become iconic because of their use by the famed early jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. This example from 1942 has a smaller egg-shaped sound hole that was not a part of Maccaferri’s original design

Mario Maccaferri (American, b. Italy, 1900–1993)
Guitar, G-40 model, ca. 1953
Plastic; 7 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. (19.7 x 62.5 cm)
Private Collection

Maccaferri moved to the United States before the outbreak of World War II. By that time, an injury to his hand had curtailed his career as a soloist, and he had entered business as a manufacturer of reeds for clarinets and saxophones. As a result of the war, cane for these reeds was difficult to obtain, so Maccaferri began making them from plastic. That led to the creation of a highly successful manufacturing business in the Bronx, where Maccaferri eventually produced a huge variety of plastic products, from clothespins to wall and floor tiles. He also manufactured plastic instruments, including guitars and ukuleles. The G-40 model guitar was an archtop version, complete with f-holes.

John D’Angelico (American, 1905–1964)
Mandolin, ca. 1925
Spruce, Brazilian rosewood, celluloid, tortoiseshell; 8 1/4 x 6 x 24 1/2 in. (21 x 15.2 x 62.2 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Jonathan & Faye Kellerman Foundation Gift, 2007 (2007.456)

Another of the Italian-born luthiers working in New York City around 1900 was Raphael Ciani, who had immigrated to the United States in 1903. He had a small workshop on Kenmare Street on the Lower East Side and is thought to have employed several workers, including the young John D’Angelico, a nephew, who may have begun learning the craft of lutherie as a young boy.

This rather plain bowlback mandolin is a typical example of the Neapolitan-style mandolin that was popular in the United States from the late nineteenth century into the 1920s. Its only decorative feature is the inlaid mother-of-pearl floral motif in the tortoiseshell pickguard. It is a rare example of a bowlback mandolin with a D’Angelico label and shows his early training in the craft from his uncle’s workshop.

Gibson, Inc.
Archtop Guitar, L-5 model (serial number 87083), 1928
Spruce, maple, ebony, steel, celluloid, mother-of-pearl; sunburst finish; 8 1/4 x 6 x 24 1/2 in. (21 x 15.2 x 62.2 cm)
Private Collection

Orville Gibson of Kalamazoo, Michigan, invented the archtop guitar and the mandolin in the 1890s and obtained a patent for them in 1895. These instruments have a carved arched top and back, a feature of violins. Gibson sold his designs and patents to a group of Kalamazoo investors that opened the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company, Ltd. In 1922, under the direction of Lloyd Loar, the firm introduced the L-5 guitar as part of its Master Model series. The L-5 incorporates additional violin features such as the floating bridge and tailpiece and the use of f-holes. The first L-5s had body widths of sixteen inches and were used by such prominent jazz guitarists as Charlie Christian and Eddie Lang and by scores of important musicians in nearly every genre since that time. John D’Angelico copied his first archtop guitars from the Gibson L-5 model.

John D’Angelico (American, 1905–1964)
Archtop Guitar (serial number 1002), 1932
Spruce, maple, ebony, steel, celluloid, mother-of-pearl; 18 1/8 in. (46 cm)
John Monteleone, Islip, New York

Orville Gibson of Kalamazoo, Michigan, invented the archtop guitar and the mandolin in the 1890s and obtained a patent for them in 1895. These instruments have a carved arched top and back, a feature of violins. Gibson sold his designs and patents to a group of Kalamazoo investors that opened the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company, Ltd. In 1922, under the direction of Lloyd Loar, the firm introduced the L-5 guitar as part of its Master Model series. The L-5 incorporates additional violin features such as the floating bridge and tailpiece and the use of f-holes. The first L-5s had body widths of sixteen inches and were used by such prominent jazz guitarists as Charlie Christian and Eddie Lang and by scores of important musicians in nearly every genre since that time. John D’Angelico copied his first archtop guitars from the Gibson L-5 model. This is the earliest known surviving archtop guitar by John D’Angelico and was owned by jazz guitarist Benny Mortell.

John D’Angelico (American, 1905–1964)
Archtop Guitar, Excel model (serial number 1871), 1951
Spruce, maple, ebony, brass, celluloid, mother-of-pearl; sunburst finish; 10 7/16 x 3 11/16 x 35 15/16 in. (26.5 x 9.3 x 91.3 cm)
Private Collection

The archtop guitar and mandolin incorporate a number of traditional violin features into a guitar. The original idea for a guitar body with an arched (carved) top and back like a violin was created by Orville Gibson of Kalamazoo, Michigan, who obtained a patent in 1898. Lloyd Loar further refined the design for the Gibson Company and in 1922 introduced the L-5 model, which also includes f-holes and a floating bridge and tailpiece like a violin. John D’Angelico used the Gibson L-5 as the model for his archtop guitars.

John D’Angelico (American, 1905–1964)
Archtop Guitar, Mel Bay New Yorker model (serial number 2038), 1957
Spruce, maple, ebony, brass, celluloid, mother-of-pearl; blonde finish, cutaway; 18 x 44 1/2 in. (45.7 x 113 cm)
Rudy Pensa, New York
Photo © Archtop History, Inc. from the book ARCHTOP GUITARS: The Journey from Cremona to New York by Rudy Pensa and Vincent Ricardel

The guitarist Mel Bay played D’Angelico guitars beginning in the 1930s. He asked D’Angelico to build him a New Yorker–sized cutaway guitar but with an Excel-sized neck, because he had small hands. Other guitarists requested this same combination, and D’Angelico introduced the Mel Bay New Yorker model. Mel Bay is today best known for his guitar-method books, millions of which have been sold, still featuring Mel Bay’s D’Angelico guitar on the cover.