Six years of success

Gianluca Galimberti, Cremona mayor and president of the MdV Foundation (left) with Bracco Foundation president Diana Bracco and MdV general director Virginia Villa at the presentation of the ‘Bracco’ Storioni small violin

The Museo del Violino celebrated its sixth anniversary on 14 September 2019. The museum continues to grow in all areas, and in 2018 more than 100,000 people visited its collections, attended concerts and recitals and took part in conferences and workshops. This stems from management decisions that aim not only to promote the museum’s cultural heritage to ever-larger numbers of people, but also to build informed participation, with priority given to putting together a quality experience that helps visitors gain an awareness of the intrinsic values of the history and tradition of Cremonese violin making.

The Museo del Violino has, over time, progressively expanded its collection, adding features including the tombstone from Stradivari’s grave, analysis of Stradivari’s iconography, a tactile educational display and the unique listening experience in the immersive audio dome created by the Musical Acoustics Lab at the Politecnico di Milano, with the support of the Fondazione Arvedi Buschini.

Storioni’s 1793 ‘Bracco’ small violin is extremely rare both in terms of its size and its state of repair

On 2 April 2019 another masterpiece was added to the museum’s collections: Lorenzo Storioni’s 1793 ‘Bracco’ small violin. A complex project to acquire, analyse and restore the instrument brought together the Fondazione Bracco, the Municipality of Cremona and the Museo del Violino, under the coordination of the Cultural District of Violin Making. The ‘Bracco’ small violin, which bears the name of the patron whose support made the project possible, bears a handwritten label by Storioni (1744–1816). The instrument is an excellent example of late 18th-century Cremonese violin making, and, as well as being a highly valuable study object and a typical example of Storioni’s work, is extremely rare both in terms of its size and its state of repair. It is approximately 40mm shorter than a full-size instrument; the current classification of violins identifies it as a half-size violin, a student instrument designed for a child of around ten years old.

Thanks to such activities and its everyday work, the Museo del Violino is both a place where memories are preserved, shared and created, and a driver of cultural production and lifelong learning. The museum stimulates social and economic development in the local region, combines tradition and innovation, and epitomises the unique city of Cremona and its openness to the rest of the world.