Maker Background
Born and raised in Cremona, Fabio couldn’t run away from the Cremonese violin-making scenario. Combining his passion for playing instruments and his abilities to work with his hands was born his caree
r. His constructive, aesthetic, and acoustic technique has grown considerably after graduation in the violin-making school, reaching professional maturity by learning with great local makers of that time.
Born in Cremona in 1967, at the age of ten, Fabio began to devote himself to music and woodworking. He frequently attended the workshop of his uncle, a restorer, and the Cremonese luthiers' 'bottega.' At the beginning of the 80s, he enrolled in the "Antonio Stradivari" violin-making school in Cremona. He developed his manual skills during his studies, obtaining a scholarship by the "Walter Stauffer" Foundation. He graduated in 1986 under the guidance of Maestro Ezio Scarrini. During the school period, he attended and worked with several Cremonese luthiers such as Massimo Negroni, Riccardo Bergonzi, Lorenzo Marchi, and Primo Pistoni. The most important of his masters was Pierangelo Balzarini, with whom he worked for five years from 1990 to 1995. His constructive, aesthetic, and acoustic technique has grown considerably in these years, reaching professional maturity. From 2000 to 2005, he taught at the Cremona violin-making school, holding professionalizing courses in advanced classes and deepening the volute's construction at a technical and stylistic level. He owns various original models of great luthiers of the 20th century, such as Garimberti and Stefanini. He used varnish of all kinds (alcohol, oil, and mixed), dedicating a lot of time to studying each of them. He uses pigments extracted by himself, making his varnish warm and natural, usually orange in color on a golden background. Lately, he prefers oil.
