Gaetano Antoniazzi was an Italian violin-maker.

Antoniazzi was born in Cremona

Cremona

Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...

, where he learned his craft in the Ceruti workshop before establishing himself in Milan in 1870 and bringing with him the Cremonese tradition of his teachers Enrico

Enrico Ceruti

Enrico Ceruti was an Italian violin maker born in Cremona, known as the last of the great line of violinmakers of Cremona.He was the son of Giuseppe Ceruti and grandson to Giovanni Battista Ceruti....

 and Giovanni Battista Ceruti

Giovanni Battista Ceruti

Giovanni Battista Ceruti was an influential Italian violin maker, and is considered a direct link to the grand tradition of the Cremonese master violin makers/ Luthiers of the 18th century....

. He died in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

.

It is only from this date until about 1890 that we find instruments signed by him. Gaetano Antoniazzi, along with his sons Riccardo

Riccardo Antoniazzi

Riccardo Antoniazzi , Italian violin maker, the sixth child and pupil of Gaetano , was the ablest and most consistent violin maker of his family. Unfortunately he lived somewhat in the shadow of Leandro Bisiach and he did not sign many of the instruments from his best period...

 and Romeo

Romeo Antoniazzi

Romeo Antoniazzi was the eighth son and pupil of Gaetano Antoniazzi.Initially he worked with his father and brother and like them made instruments for Leandro Bisiach....

 trained Leandro Bisiach

Leandro Bisiach

-Biography:Leandro Bisiach was a violin maker born in Casale Monferrato Italy and died in 1945 at Venegono Superiore.Trained as a violinist, he made his first violin on his own and received praise for it. Thus he decided to become a violin maker and moved to Milan to work with the Antoniazzi...

, and together with the Antoniazzis, Bisiach influenced the creation of a workshop environment that was to dominate early to middle 20th Century Italian violinmaking.

The result of this highly successful business model was that Milan became a hotbed of skilled violinmakers.
Under this system, many important 20th Century Italian violinmakers received their early training, among them Gaetano Sgarabotto, Giuseppe Ornati

Giuseppe Ornati

Giuseppe Ornati - .Considered to be one of the greatest violin makers of his time, he trained as a carpenter and then received the first notions of violin making from the amateur maker Carlo Moneta....

, Ferdinando Garimberti

Ferdinando Garimberti

Garimberti, Ferdinando was an Italian violin maker.Garimberti was born in Mamiano di Traversetolo. He studied with Romeo Antoniazzi, then Riccardo Antoniazzi; he then worked for Giuseppe Pedrazzini and Leandro Bisiach, and later set up independently in Milan.Between 1927 and 1949 his instruments...

, Igino Sderci

Igino Sderci

Igino Sderci was born in Florence, Italy. He devoted his entire career to violin making, studying under master maker Leandro Bisiach.A very prolific maker making more than 700 instruments including many large violas....

, Rocchi Sesto

Rocchi Sesto

-Biography:Sesto Rocchi was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy. He started his violin making studies at the School of Violin Making at the Conservatory of Music in Parma under Gaetano Sgarabotto. After approximately 6 years of study, he moved to Milan to further his learning with Leandro Bisiach...

, Cipriano Briani, Giuseppe Pedrazzini

Giuseppe Pedrazzini

Giuseppe Pedrazzini -. Italian violin maker. He was a pupil of Romeo Antoniazzi in Milan, then began to work on his own there....

, Camillo Mandelli, Ferriccio Varagnolo, Camillo Colombo, Vincenzo Cavani, Pietro Paravicini, Albert Moglie, Andrea Bisiach, Carlo Bisiach

Carlo Bisiach

Carlo Bisiach was a violin maker born in Milan Italy. Bisiach’s work contributed to the rebirth of violin making in the region after the difficult times of World War I and World War II....

, Pietro Borghi, Mirco Tarasconi, Leandro Jr. & Giacomo Bisiach, Iginio Siega and Carlo Ferrario.

Gaetano's work is good, original and spontaneous, but not always very careful. The varnish is yellow-brown or sometimes red-brown in colour. His labels were generally handwritten.

External links

• La Liuteria Italiana / Italian Violin Making in the 1800s and 1900s - Umberto Azzolina
• I Maestri Del Novicento - Carlo Vettori
• La Liuteria Lombarda del '900 - Roberto Codazzi, Cinzia Manfredini 2002
• Dictionary of 20th Century Italian Violin Makers - Marlin Brinser 1978
• Walter Hamma
  Walter Hamma
  Walter Hamma was a German violin maker.His father was the violin maker Fridolin Hamma. Walter Hamma was pupil of the violin making school in Mittenwald 1933-1935. He worked with Ferdinand Jaura and later for Caressa & Francais in Paris. During the second world war the workshop in Stuttgart was...
  
  , Meister Italienischer Geigenbaukunst, Wilhelmshaven 1993, ISBN 3-7959-0537-0
• Liuteria Parmense