Announcing: The Cozio di Salabue Exhibition: A 18th & 19th Century Collector’s Journey

Unveiling Cozio’s Carteggio Transcript

This exhibition also marks the pre-launch of the eagerly anticipated book, “Il Carteggio del Conte Cozio di Salabue” by Duane Rosengard & Giovanni Accornero.

In a single large-scale work, the complete and meticulous transcription of Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue’s papers, enriched by supplemental in-depth archival research, recounts the activity of one of the most important figures in the history of Italian violin-making between the late 18th century and the modern era. Over six decades during the life of this fascinating and adventurous Piedmontese nobleman, he was at once a witness and patron, a far-sighted collector, and the first critical historian of Northern Italian violin making, as well as the precursor of reasoned, in-depth studies of bowed instrument making in general, with particular attention given to works of the Cremonese school’s leading masters.

Cozio’s enthralling passion was lived and developed within a dense network of relationships with dealers, collectors, virtuoso musicians, scholars, and luthiers, among the latter, in particular Giovanni Battista Guadagnini. Four volumes, not only arranged chronologically, in a clear and finally understandable presentation, the Count’s three principal manuscript notebooks, enriched with numerous drawings and unpublished reliefs of instruments by Cremonese makers – but also a 360° view of the origins and development of one of the most important bowed instruments collections in history, highlighting the man who gave birth to the serious study of ancient Italian bowed instruments as no one before him had attempted. It is an indispensable work for luthiers, organologists, musicologists, and scholars in collateral fields, as well as an easy and pleasant reading for enthusiasts and musicians or anyone interested in discovering the unique figure of Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio of Salabue.