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In Focus: an 1870 Ludovico Rastelli violin

2023-09-12T09:03:00

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Alberto Giordano takes a look at a violin by the Italian maker

Ludovico Rastelli was born in 1801 in the small village of Castelletto Scazzoso, located in the hills of Monferrato, Piedmont. Nothing is known about the early period of his life, nor about his move to Genoa; the earliest information we have about his career is contained in a restoration inscription in a German violin, which shows that by 1835 he was working at the city’s Piazza Lavagna. Despite this lack of information, archival documents show that from that date onwards he was recorded as an instrument maker and repairer in several places, always in the city’s historic centre. He died in Genoa in 1878 after a long and uninterrupted career.

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