Knowra Nicola Amati Nicola Amati Nicola Amati (1596–1684) was a Cremonese violin maker who refined the Amati family tradition and trained a generation of influential makers, including Antonio Stradivari.
Violin : A bowed string instrument with four strings, played under the chin with a bow. Amati’s work helped establish the violin’s mature form and proportions.
Andrea Amati : A sixteenth-century Cremonese violin maker, widely regarded as the founder of the Amati workshop tradition. Nicola continued the craft developed by his grandfather Andrea.
Grand Pattern : A large violin model associated with Nicola Amati, distinguished by broad proportions and carefully shaped arching. This model exemplifies the mature design associated with Amati’s workshop.
King cello : A cello made by Andrea Amati around the mid-sixteenth century and preserved in the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota. It represents the early Amati family tradition that Nicola inherited.
Cremonese violin-making : The tradition of violin making that developed in Cremona, Italy, from the sixteenth century onward. Amati’s workshop became one of this tradition’s defining centers.
Girolamo Amati : A Cremonese violin maker and Nicola Amati’s father, who worked in the family workshop. He was Nicola’s immediate predecessor in the Amati workshop.
Violin outline : The perimeter shape of a violin’s top and back plates, formed by bouts, corners, and C-bouts. Amati’s outlines helped set a model later Cremonese makers adapted.
Amati violin, 1666 : A violin made by Nicola Amati in 1666, now held by the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. This surviving instrument offers a dated example of Nicola’s mature work.
Amati family : A dynasty of Cremonese stringed-instrument makers active from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Nicola inherited and reshaped the family’s established craft.
Antonio Stradivari : A Cremonese instrument maker whose violins became among the most celebrated in history. Stradivari is traditionally associated with training in Amati’s workshop.
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