Dmitry Gindin: Expert and consultant in fine stringed instruments

 

Giovanni Battista Gaibisso, Giuseppe Castagnino and Pietro Gallinotti

Gaibisso lived and worked in Alassio, a small Ligurian coastal town in the province of Savona, located about halfway between Genoa and Nice. He lived briefly in South America but is also known to have worked in Nice for François Bovis (1860-1914), an ex-workman of Nicolò Bianchi.

Castagnino was a talented Ligurian maker who worked 40km down the coast from Genoa, in Chiavari. Mostly self-taught, he participated in the 1906 Milan Exhibition, surprisingly winning a gold medal. In 1911 he entered a quartet into the Turin exhibition and competition. While there he was introduced by Cesare Candi to Giuseppe Fiorini, who in 1913 took him into his Munich workshop for some weeks as an apprentice. Castagnino continued presenting his fine work in various exhibitions and competitions, including the 1937 Cremona Bicentenary Exhibition.

Gallinotti apprenticed as a cabinetmaker in his native Piedmontese village of Solero near Alessandria, about halfway between Genoa and Turin. Legend has it that his first encounter with instrument making came during his time as a prisoner of war in the First World War, when he was ordered to build a violin.