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Omobono Stradivari

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Omobono Stradivari (November 14, 1679 – June 8, 1742) was a violin maker and the sixth son of the famous Antonio Stradivari.

Biography

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Omobono Stradivari was born on 14 November 1679 to Antonio Stradivari and his first wife Francesca Ferraboschi in Cremona, Italy. Little is known about his early life except that his family was living at a house known as Casa del Pescatore in the Parish of Saint Agata. Just one year after Omobono was born, the family sold the Casa del Pescatore for the respectable sum of 7,000 Imperial Lire, and relocated to the famous home of Antonio Stradivari, Casa Nuziale, which is now No. 1 Piazza Roma, Cremona. When he was 19, his mother died and his father Antonio organized an elaborate funeral, showing that the Stradivaris were already quite prosperous. Antonio quickly remarried, this time to Antonia Zambelli, and had five more children.[1]

While it is probable that Omobono started working in his father's workshop from a young age, as was the practice of the day, there is very little work that can be definitively traced to him. Antonio Stradivari is well known not only for his high productivity, but also for his use of templates and a highly finished product, eliminating all tool marks that could be used to deduce the identity of the workman. Omobono is supposed to have been chiefly occupied with repairing. On works that are attributable to him, he shows clumsy workmanship, except on the scroll,[2] suggesting that if his father employed a division of labour in his workshop, perhaps Omobono was assigned the scrolls. Besides the decay in workmanship, Omobono's instruments show little other departure from the design of his father except that he tended to point the mitres of his purfling outward, away from the Cs.[3]

After his father's death in 1737, Omobono stopped his production of instruments, and receded into obscurity.


Giulio Cesare StradivariDoralice Milani
m. 1600
Leonardo Moroni
Alessandro Stradivari
b. 1602
Anna Moroni
m. 1622
Giuseppe Giulio Cesare
b. 1623
Carlo Felice
b. 1626
Giovanni Battista
b. 1628

Antonio Stradivari
c. 1644–1737
Francesca Ferraboschi
1640–1698
m. 1667
Antonia Maria Zambelli
c. 1664–1737
m. 1699
Giulia Maria[dubiousdiscuss]
c. 1667
Francesco
1670–1670

Francesco
1671–1743
Catterina Annunciata
1674–1748
Alessandro Giuseppe
1677–1732

Omobono Stradivari
1679–1742
Francesca Maria
1700–1720
Giovanni Battista Giuseppe
1701–1702
Giovanni Battista Martino
1703–1727
Giuseppe Antonio
1704–1781
Paolo
1708–1776

References

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  1. ^ Hill, W. Henry; Hill, Arthur F.; Hill, Alfred E. (1963). Antonio Stradivari: His Life and Work (1644–1737) (Dover ed.). p. 290. ISBN 9780486204253. LCCN 63-17904.
  2. ^ Henley, William. Universal Dictionary of Violin and Bow Makers.
  3. ^ Henley, William. Universal Dictionary of Violin and Bow Makers.