Five hundred years ago, give or take a year or two (nobody knows the exact date), Andrea Amati, the founding father of what would become the world's greatest school of violin-makers, was born in Cremona, a town in northern Italy. Violins had been built before Amati pioneered his instrument, but none had been built like his. Virtually unchanged since his death in 1577, the instrument he developed led composers and players to reroute the course of western music around violin-based ensembles. Over the next 200 years or so, the torch passed to Amati's sons, grandson and great-grandson as well as to his even more illustrious successors, Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri. But by the mid-18th century, Cremona's fortunes were fading fast, and the violin trade with them. Yet the product that had made the town famous has remained as fresh, gorgeous and desirable as ever.
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