LA violin maker workshop
Amedeo Furfaro *
Amedeo Furfaro *
The De Bonis first time I went in '77, given that some more as measured by the label inside the guitar that I bought on that occasion. Judeca worked in the shop of the brothers Nicola and Vincenzo, reported in the edition of the Dictionnaire Universel '51 des Luthiers by René Vannes makers such as last in order of time, the dynasty of debonisiana Bisignano. To see them work for the first time was an unforgettable sight for someone like me, music is passionate about things where things are also in the sense merely cosalismo, object, craft. The first thing that sprang to the eyes were in his hands. Agile, nervous, seemed to move loaded by an autonomous force, inside, while clutching clamps, flanges, chisels, gouges (curved chisels that is), files, rasps to make musical instruments. It was a coordinated facere, handling regular, almost rhythmic movement, the one that took place the material selection, set-up to the first parts of the instrument - Axis, top, bottom, chains - their initial assembly and that of the side bands, the recording of linings, grafting the neck and then, when ready the body of the guitar, mandolin, lute, attack soundboard, the thread, the latest treatments to the keyboard and details of further refinement. A job that lasted months, the articulation of which was visible approximately: one visit to the shop as there could be found by simple shapes in tools in more or less advanced stage of construction. Other hands have touched them, too fast, but able to produce sounds by pressing keys, plucking the strings. The hands of musicians, artisans, in turn, in the sense of producing harmony through action products: the musical performance. And the maker, a craftsman of art, is creative, like a musician, when she sings songs freely on the instrument that is about to come to light, the eyes of the student or in the concert which will entrust her child, participating ideally at the time of amniotic sound production . Still, the maker is creative, like a musician, when flying to decorate it embraces the guitar beautifully, making it unique and inimitable. Something else struck, already at that first visit, my curiosity, and the shop. Located between this cluster of houses that make up the ancient Jewish quarter of brute Besidiae it might seem, the future, a common laboratory carpentry. A shelf full of glues, lacquers, pastes, and a work table, tools on the wall, some chairs, fragrant timber resting, without apparent order, in the back of the shop shortly after the door on the right served as the communication with the rest of 'home. The shop, however, betrayed his destination when you could be seen, a little here a little there, or well-defined shapes sketched lute instruments. A customer would be less distracted is documented warning, in that place, a quality which to me seemed to feel it now: the palpability of history through objects and materials.
A read mentioned Vannes, the founder of De Bonis, Vincenzo I, who died in 1850, was born in 1780. But this date is not indicative of when the shop was built. Gaetano Gallo, in a number of Brutium (XLII, 2), referred to a census of curial <>, that is, the family hearth, shown clearly on documents much earlier than those containing the personal data of which it was remade Vannes for his Dictionnaire. In fact, when the art of violin making was, in 500-600, its golden period with famous schools in Cremona, Bologna, Venice, Brescia, lute bisignanese production was well established by the purchaser for value and quality especially during aristocratic representations of melodramas that were held at the court. When, in the post-Renaissance art of lute-making center of Cosenza, seat, also manufacturers of metal tools and bodies Gallo, expired level, you <> and lost competitiveness with the outside of various problems of social and economic, lute tradition is not stopped, in fact, later on, would have been ennobled by the activity of luthiers G. Battista Ferrari (1795-1862) and Vincenzo Cariati (1837-1902) and intermarried with De Bonis, however, also revolving around their school. The chronological sequence-registry is not the only useful to date, or at least to set the scan time the activities of the various De Bonis. Other data in this way could provide diplomas obtained in violin making competitions and events at least if you are saved from the custom of a time that the dead were buried with the honors acquired during his earthly life. Many are kept in the shop, framed or locked in a trunk. The claims date back more backdated fascist. However, the fact that the certificates are relatively more recent number of stems mainly from the reduced possibility of exchange and communication of a time and the limited existence of institutions and associations in the promotion of violin making, as they do today. Other elements <> the story the shop and its owners are detectable by the books and the press: articles from the magazine <> - first appeared in '29 - the services of modern newspapers, to the short essays episodes such as that, en passant, R. Curia, in 1985, Bisignano volume in the history of the South. A history of the shop could have been drawn <>, observing visitors if, unrealistically, there had been hidden in a candid camera to record the faces and talks common bobima curious, simple buyers, eminent scholars, journalists, intrusive, and famous musicians non-guitarists <> light extraction and musicians, folk, rock. But the reconstruction more precise stages of the workshop-school, the scene of a human story and craft-art inrergenerazionale should be given the same tools to mark De Bonis, at least the most valuable and meaningful in a catalog or, perhaps, in an exhibition. But do not get me wrong. The tone of this note is not proactive. There would not be warranted. During my most recent visit to Vincenzo De Bonis, a year ago when I took some photos to complete the illustrative part of my book on the history of music and musicians in Calabria, the shop was still there, equal to herself, as if the weather had taken shelter there. But in recent years and Nicole was not Vincent was left alone to work and regret of his solitude. A man and craftsmanship. Activism happy that I had found ten years earlier was a distant memory. It was the decade that consumers seem like an eternity. The shop appeared to me as a place of pilgrimage pending announcement of the death of a centuries-old tradition of origin. To no avail interviews, newspaper articles, the appeal for groped to build a future for the prestigious past of the shop De Bonis. Vincent held for himself the secrets of his art.
* Taken from: http://www.tropeamagazine.it/liutaio/index.html
