ITA: String Instruments Of Cremona

CREMONA, ITALY ? NOVEMBER 2006: Giovanni Battista Morassi, the master of the violin makers of Cremona, knows if the violin will have a good resonance by tapping the wood with his finger. The historical city of Cremona in Italy is famed for its production of high quality string instruments. The network of narrow streets running off and around the Paizza del Commune hold 120 artisan string instrument workshops. Today?s violin makers are the heirs of the talented Andrea Amati, inventor of the violin, his son Nicolo who was the most notorious member of the family, of Andrea Guarneri, father of the eponymous dynasty but also of the famous Antonio Stradivari, student of Nicolo Amati. They were the creators, the artists who made some of the world?s most prestigious violins, cellos and violas. Nowadays, their prices reach astronomical sums at auction. On April 22, 2005 in New York, a Stradivarius from 1699 was sold for ?1.6million Euros. One year later, another one was sold for ?2.7million Euros. Thanks to science, acoustics experts can measure the frequency, resonance, and intensity of the strings, therefore arguably now producing the highest quality instruments ever, even if their prices are still eclipsed by the older historic models by the grand masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. (Photo by Patrick Landmann/Getty Images)