Dmitry Gindin: Expert and consultant in fine stringed instruments

  

Giuseppe Stefanini, Giuseppe Lucci, Primo Cantavalli, Antonio Cavalazzi

Stefanini, of Conselice near Bagnacavallo in the province of Ravenna, was another excellent craftsman who learned violin making locally and started by working in close proximity to his birthplace, in Lugo. Custode Marcucci, whose instruments exemplify solid, genuine early Romagnol making (see p. 180), lived and worked a few kilometres away, and he may well have been an early influence for Stefanini. Stefanini later learned from Pietro Borghi, a collaborator of Leandro Bisiach Sr. who, like Marcucci, was based close to Lugo and Bagnacavallo.

Slightly younger than Giuseppe Stefanini, Giuseppe Lucci was a talented maker who also came from Bagnacavallo. The two young makers shared the same maestro, Pietro Borghi of Lugo (a larger village a few kilometres away from Bagnacavallo). Lucci won a gold medal for his string trio in the 1949 International Violin Making Exhibition and Competition in Cremona. He made some exceptional instruments while still in Romagna but in 1953, at the height of his powers, he established a workshop in Rome, which is still active today in the hands of his daughter Raffaella and her husband Rodolfo Marchini (b. 1943), who was Lucci's pupil and stylistic descendant.

Contavalli and Cavalazzi of Imola and Bagnacavallo, respectively, were good and prolific makers who propelled their typical Romagnol style well into the 1980s, satisfying the developing local and foreign market for fine student instruments. Contavalli learned from his father, Luigi (1862-1954), although the son's work perhaps surpasses the father's. He thus started his successful production earlier than either Capicchioni or Fracassi, working on a highly revised, later Guarneri del Gesù pattern with strong flutings around the f-holes and quality oil varnishes. Cavalazzi, on the other hand, was a pupil of Domenico Veggi, an older maker from the same town.