RENAISSANCE MAN

As a luthier, musician, composer, teacher and successful businessman, Luigi Mozzani spread his talents far and wide. Lorenzo Frignani examines his eventful career, which produced all kinds of instruments

Luigi Mozzani was a gifted guitar soloist, as shown in this advertisement for a 1916 concert in Bologna, with Mozzani holding one of his own lyre-guitars

Luigi Mozzani (1869–1943) is one of the most intriguing characters in the world of Italian music and violin making in the early 20th century. Many sources describe him as a ‘luthier’, but in reality he was more of a brilliant entrepreneur and businessman rather than a hard-working craftsman at the bench. His atelier became a magnet for several talented luthiers, while he himself spent his time promoting Italian music within the cultural milieu of the time. An excellent composer and guitarist himself, he oversaw the production of both plucked and bowed stringed instruments, and the history books record his prowess in all three disciplines: playing, making and composition.

Mozzani was born in Faenza, around 30 miles south-east of Bologna, on 9 March 1869. As a young man he studied the guitar as well as the oboe, which was enjoying great popularity at the time. By the age of 21 he was already performing concerts on both instruments as far afield as Algeria, as was recorded in the Gazzette Algerienne. He then enrolled at the Conservatorio di Bologna, where he obtained his diploma as an oboist at the age of 23 – just two years after enrolling. Shortly after that, he obtained a two-year contract to play at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, but since it could offer him no work in the summer, he travelled to Germany to perform as a guitarist. That tour proved so successful that it convinced him to dedicate himself full-time to the guitar. His next move was to America, where an impresario had invited him over for a series of concerts. The promoter was only interested in him, rather than the musical group he had been touring with. This experience gave Mozzani the chance to spend time with American musicians, as well as to take his first steps in composition: his first book of guitar studies appeared in 1896. His sojourn in the US did not last long, however; the political situation with Spain convinced him to return to Italy where, without money or solid prospects, he spent six months in England before finally going to France. There he established relationships with the mandolin makers Jules Cottin and Lucien Gelas, and also got to meet the famed classical guitarist and composer Miguel Llobet.

In France, Mozzani achieved a good position as a guitar tutor, as well as a certain amount of renown. At that point he decided to return to Italy, and in 1899 he came back to his home town of Faenza, where he founded a guitar factory in the Via della Ganga.

It seems that in these early years he also had work experience in Faenza, at the renowned Casalini cabinet making firm and at a piano company created by Battista Savini. It would also appear that at some point he was employed at the Fabbrica Anelli in Cremona. Evidently these positions were used by Mozzani to supplement his income, while demonstrating a certain wanderlust and taste for new experiences.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Mozzani had the chance to make several visits to Germany and Austria. These brought him a number of important contacts, in particular the Viennese luthier Friedrich Schenk. It was also at this time that he was able to get to know and appreciate the ‘lyre-guitar’ models, appreciating above all the adoption of the added bass strings. Once popular in the early 19th century, the instrument was essentially a guitar built in the shape of a Roman lyre, which appealed at a time when Classical antiquity was a source of fascination to the upper classes. Mozzani was himself fascinated by the instrument and began developing his own ideas for it. His most interesting experiment was to add a fitting in the neck, so the player could adjust the angle and position of the neck, and the string height.

In 1907 he went to Cento to visit the double bass player Ernesto Tassinari, whom he had previously met in Switzerland. There he met Tassinari’s sister Alfonsina, who later became his wife. In those years he also continued a busy schedule of concerts abroad, particularly to Germany. This subsided with the growing fermentation of German nationalism.

In 1909 Mozzani took up residence in Cento and established a relationship with the Carletti family, who lived and worked in the town. This relationship developed into a business partnership, and Mozzani opened a workshop in Via Gennari. He worked particularly closely with Carlo Carletti, as well as with his former partner Orsolo Gotti.

The Mozzani workshop became well known for its lyre-guitars

This was a very creative period in Mozzani’s life, during which he devoted himself to the study of acoustics and problems inherent in musical instruments. He and Alfonsina conducted experiments in varnish, finding solutions to common problems and giving lessons to his apprentices, along with the professional luthiers he had hired. Among these was Mario Maccaferri (1900–93), who later became famous in America and France as the designer of the Selmer guitar (sometimes still known as the ‘Selmer Maccaferri’ guitar). This received a boost when it became the favourite instrument of Django Reinhardt.

Luigi Mozzani with Claudio Gamberini (left) and Mario Maccaferri (right)

LYRE-GUITAR PHOTO COURTESY LORENZO FRIGNANI

MOZZANI SUPPLEMENTED HIS INCOME WHILE DEMONSTR ATING A CERTAIN WANDERLUST AND TASTE FOR NEW EXPERIENCES

In 1910 Mozzani suffered a traumatic loss: his second-born daughter Giulietta fell victim to meningitis. Her death was so tragic for Mozzani that it forced him to retire from the stage and focus more exclusively on the workshop. However, he continued to experiment, inventing special tools for finger training, travel guitars with removable necks, bizarrely shaped violins and a huge number of other gadgets. He gave a very particular stylistic imprint to his plucked stringed instruments, with clear references to art nouveau and art deco. This can be seen, for example, in the shape of the guitar bridges of many of his models.

In 1915, following the growing demand for his instruments, Mozzani moved to a larger workshop in Cento, on the Via Provenzali. Natale Carletti and Orsolo Gotti had already abandoned the previous workshop between 1912 and 1913, having started their own business together.

At the new location, Mozzani’s workshop reached its point of peak activity. All kinds of stringed instruments were built there: violins, violas, cellos, double basses, guitars, mandolins of all sizes, and bass mandolins. At this time there were several orchestras of plucked instruments, some containing more than 200 instruments. The examples in Ferrara and Bologna mainly used examples from the Mozzani workshop.

The 1920s saw the advent of an economic crisis in Italy, arising from the aftershocks of the First World War. This forced Mozzani to reduce the company’s staff drastically. From 1921 to 1928 he continued the company’s activities with just a few helpers, and in tandem with the Cento workshop he set up a second firm in Bologna with the brothers Umberto and Ermanno Pizzi. This had its headquarters in the Via Zamboni.

A disassembled travel guitar, built to Mozzani’s design

Mozzani’s Via Provenzali workshop between 1915 and 1924

TRAVEL GUITAR COURTESY LORENZO FRIGNANI

Mozzani’s fortunes received a boost in 1927, when the Cento municipal government arranged for the creation of a violin making school in the town. The ruling Fascist party, keen to celebrate the past glories of Italy such as its violin making heritage, concluded a contract with Mozzani to found the school, which came into being in July of that year. The so-called ‘Scuola di Liuteria Italiana Luigi Mozzani’ offered a three-year course in violin making. In May 1929 the mayor of Bologna the school was taken up by the municipal government of Bologna, following the interest of the mayor. Its name became ‘Liuteria Italiana Luigi Mozzani’, and a year later, following its transformation into a ‘special company’, it finally became known as ‘Liuteria Italiana Mozzani’.

MOZZANI’S FORTUNES RECEIVED A BOOST IN 1927 WITH THE CREATION OF A VIOLIN MAKING SCHOOL IN THE TOWN OF CENTO

INSTRUMENTS OF THE MOZZANI WORKSHOP

Left and below Front and scroll of a c.1930 violin from the Mozzani workshop

Left This violin dates from 1928

It is difficult to establish precisely the style characteristics specific to the Mozzani workshop, as they depended a great deal on which of his workers actually built the instrument. There were certainly ‘guidelines’ dictated by the stylistic features of local tradition, a legacy of the experienced luthiers who collaborated with Mozzani – in particular Carlo Carletti and Orsolo Gotti, who were mainly responsible for bringing this influence into the workshop.

Archings are sometimes a little square, while at other times are soft and harmonious. The f-holes can be carved in rather an inelegant way. But despite their relative naivety stylistically, these instruments almost always achieve a very satisfactory result tonally.

Mozzani stamped the interiors of his instruments with this mark

Scroll of a 1917 violin from the workshop

The Ferrara and Bologna traditions are quite evident in many details, in particular the heads, the ‘rounded’ eye of the volute, and a particular turn of the scroll that closes at the top. All these are reminiscent of the historical traditions of the Marconcini and Sgarbi families, and we can also find them in instruments of the Carletti family. Varnishes are alcohol-based, generally orange–red in colour, sometimes slightly brown. The workshop kept the recipe simple, probably for reasons of practicality and cost.

The materials used for the soundboxes were often indigenous to Italy. It is common to find both guitars and bowed instruments made from white poplar (Populus alba) or field maple, also known as ‘oppiello’ (Acer campestre). Mozzani’s attention was focused on availability, preferably at low cost, given the quantity of instruments produced in his workshops.

Generally his guitars are of sturdy workmanship and good acoustic quality. Stringed instruments are generally very sonorous. For these reasons, the highquality craftsmanship of Mozzani’s collaborators should never be forgotten.

Another example (front and back) of a Mozzani lyre-guitar

A museum display in Pieve di Cento dedicated to Mozzani and his instruments

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY LORENZO FRIGNANI

Mozzani took several of the students from the city’s orphanages, or institutions for war orphans, teaching them to read and write as well as training them in the making of stringed instruments. This period, however, also marked the start of a decline in his fortunes, which culminated in 1933 with the closure of the school, apparently as a result of misunderstandings and negligence on the part of local administrators. The blow was hard for Mozzani but he stubbornly continued to keep a laboratory-house alive.

Mozzani’s instruments were now known throughout the world and his fame as an instrument maker was rock-solid, although he remained a tormented soul. The guitar maker Romolo Ferrari recalled him as having ‘a heart repressed by anxieties, especially financial ones’. However, in 1935 Mozzani had the opportunity to meet the guitarist Andrés Segovia, who was already famous by then. A refugee from Spain driven out by the Civil War, he was invited to Italy by Romolo Ferrari and Mozzani built some guitars for him. He chose one, and performed on it for around a year.

In 1940, the year the Second World War was declared in Italy, Mozzani opened yet another school, this time in Rovereto in the north of the country. He took over the management of the school while Alfonsina took up a role as a painting teacher and his niece Carmen Lenzi became a typist. Rino Federici, who had been a student at the previous school in Bologna, was hired as a teacher of lutherie. However, during the winter of early 1943 Mozzani became seriously ill, and passed away on the evening of 12 August that same year.

MOZZANI TOOK STUDENTS FROM THE CITY’S ORPHANAGES, TEACHING THEM TO READ AND WRITE AS WELL AS TR AINING THEM IN INSTRUMENT MAKING

Despite the difficulties of the war, the school remained active until 31 December 1946, the day on which the municipality of Rovereto decided to suspend its activity. The school’s materials began to be dispersed, some of them being transported to Mexico around the years 1955–56 (owing to the interest of Roberto Lanaro, a luthier from Padua who emigrated first to Argentina and then to Mexico). Some of the remainder went to Castelfidardo in the province of Ancona, having been purchased by the Farfisa company in 1966. Another part, around 33 instruments, remained preserved in a music shop in Rovereto until around 2005. Then, following its closure, it was purchased by the municipal administration of Pieve di Cento which added it to its own museum collections.

It is a pity that today there is no significant museum collection showcasing the work of Luigi Mozzani. Without question he can be called a great genius of Italian lutherie, and a figure whose entrepreneurial and cultural abilities kept alive a great local tradition, particularly that of the Emilia-Romagna region. It might even be called the most important and richest in the historical panorama of Italian lutherie after that of Cremona in the 18th century.

TRANSLATION BY CHRISTIAN LLOYD