Lutherie in Argentina: New world wonders

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Unlike many countries, the story of violin making in Argentina begins relatively late in the country’s history. Before the 1880s there were very few, if any, luthiers there at all; however, in just a few decades the city of Buenos Aires came to house a number of very skilled and prolific instrument makers, most of them Italian. At that time, Italy was in the midst of its unification wars while much of Europe was suffering from hunger and increasingly acute economic problems. Hence, many professionals began considering the prospect of making a new life for themselves in the Americas. So in 1876 the Argentine government, led by Nicolás Avellaneda, decided to launch a new migration policy to help Europeans settle in Argentina…