Dmitry Gindin: Expert and consultant in fine stringed instruments

  

Giuseppe Lecchi and Lorenzo Bellafontana

Giuseppe Bernardo Lecchi was originally a carpenter who turned to violin making only in 1923, when he was apprenticed to Cesare Candi. His hand becomes visible in Candi's more commercial production starting from around 1925. Lecchi opened his own workshop in 1933 but continued to collaborate with Candi through the 1930s. His high level of craftsmanship earned him several medals at international competitions and exhibitions; he eventually took over from de Barbieri curatorship of 'Il Cannone'.

Lorenzo Bellafontana, the last Genoese maker of the Candi school, brought the city's fine modern violin-making tradition to a graceful close. Unusually, a pupil of Oreste Candi rather than of Cesare, he was also well educated in the arts and played the violin; he was even a member of Genoa's Symphony Orchestra during the Second World War. Sadly, the workshop he opened in 1935 was destroyed by bombings in 1942 and again in 1944, and then by a flood in 1970.