Francesco Bissolotti was one of the most excellent contemporary violin makers from Cremona and taught many violin-making followers of today. He was also a conductor.
Francesco was born on the 2nd of April in 1929 in a small village called Soresina in Northern Cremona. Influenced from his uncle, who was a furniture craftsman, he started woodwork when still small. At first, he learned by himself to make violins. Later, in 1957, he entered Cremona International Stringed Instrument Making School, where he studied with renowned craftsmen: Pietro Sgarabotto, Ferdinando Garimberti and Giuseppe Ornati.
Bissolotti was an instructor at Cremona International Stringed Instrument Making School from 1961 to 1983.
In 1962, he established his first atelier on Platina Street. Around this period, he studied with Simone Ferdinando Sacconi.
Sacconi worked in Bissolotti’s atelier continually from 1962 to 1972, for successive several months for one time, to study left-by-Stradivari Collection preserved in Palazzo dell’arte and finish its reorganization with Bissolotti.
This work became the base of "The Secrets of Stradivari" ("I Segreti di Stradivari" in Italian), which is a compilation of all the studies of Sacconi. Bissolotti and Sacconi continued their collaboration and developed it to the collaboration with Wurlitzer in New York, the atelier of which was conducted by Sacconi himself.
Besides violin making, he studied acoustics and varnish and made experiments on them. Also as an amateur violinist, he had a good understanding of musical performers’ demands for sounds and practically met such demands with many pieces of his artwork.
Bissolotti made about 600 instruments through his life. One of his sons, Tiziano, passed away while young, but the other three sons, MarcoVinicio, Maurizio and Vincenzo worked with him in their atelier on San Paolo Piazza until his death on January the 31st in 2019. People sadly missed his existence.
Ideas from Cremonese classical models were taken in on many of Francesco Bissolotti’s artwork. This violin, introduced on this page, were made in 1987 at the age of 58, so-called the period of his maturity, after the model of Guarnei del Gesu of 1735. Precisely elaborated finish-up, color tones of the alcohol varnish and its quality feeling fully represent his originality.
Gorgeous, well-balanced refined sound with extremely high practicality explains its rarity.