Celeste Farotti (Farotto)

Life and Career

Celeste Farotti was born in 1864 as Celeste Farotto in Olivola Monferrato, a hamlet on the Po Plain, about 100 km south-southwest of Milan. To escape the meager life of a farm laborer, he traveled through the region at a young age and worked in all sorts of jobs. Later, he even moved around frequently to find work wherever he could earn a living. In San Giorgio, he became a carpenter and eventually started his own small business in San Germano. Celeste Farotti was not only skilled with his hands but also musical; in his spare time, he played various instruments. Around 1885, he must have met someone who introduced him to string instruments. It is impossible to say with certainty who that person was, but the town of Casale Monferrato, where Celeste Farotti lived within walking distance, was prosperous and had an active musical life with a remarkably large number of amateur violinists. Italy’s foremost expert on stringed instruments, Cozio di Salabue (1755–1840), was also a native of Casale Monferrato. Several wealthy collectors of stringed instruments lived there as well. The violin maker Nicolo Bianchi (1847–1901) counted at least two of them among his clients.

Casale Monferrato was also the hometown of the man who would later play an important role in his career choice, Leandro Bisiach (1864–1946). It is highly likely that Celeste Farotti met Leandro Bisiach there; Bisiach was a skilled violinist and a woodworker. He assisted his father in making parts for stringed instruments and built his first violin in Casale Monferrato in 1886. The musical life in Casale Monferrato—but even more so his encounter with Leandro Bisiach—must have made such an impression on Celeste that he built his first violin that very year. In the years that followed, Celeste Farotti mainly carried out repairs and built a few violins—and presumably also a few cellos—in San Germano. Around 1895, he met Giuseppe Negri by chance. Negri was a cellist at La Scala in Milan and had made a name for himself as a soloist with various orchestras. After visiting Celeste’s workshop, the cellist was impressed by Celeste’s talent, asked him to build a cello for him, and, after assessing the result, encouraged the luthier to come to Milan. There, he would be able to further develop his skills among other violin makers.

Giuseppe Negri was not only Celeste’s first patron, but he also found him a home in Milan. Negri did even more; he introduced Celeste to Leandro Bisiach, who was one of the most important violin makers in northern Italy. Bisiach employed several outstanding violin makers who crafted instruments in various styles. Bisiach, who was himself a connoisseur and dealer in valuable instruments, taught his employees to recognize the key characteristics of master instruments, many of which passed through his workshop. Celeste stayed with Bisiach for a year to explore his future options.

His hesitation was not unfounded; after hyperinflation had driven up the prices of all foodstuffs to such an extent that most of the city’s residents were going hungry, a riot broke out in Milan. Hundreds were injured and dozens were killed. Due to poverty, spending money on musical instruments was not an obvious choice. Celeste enrolled in Milan anyway, but due to a clerical error, he was not recorded in the city archives under his actual name, Celeste Farotto; instead, even after he objected, he remained registered as Farotti. He resigned himself to this error for the rest of his life. It can be called courageous that, in 1900, despite increasing poverty and economic uncertainty, he struck out on his own. And not only for that reason; Leandro Bisiach controlled a large portion of the market. This was not limited to northern Italy alone but extended far beyond it. Researchers suspect that Bisiach had him carry out repairs during the early years after he went into business for himself. This included valuable instruments. That gave Celeste the opportunity to study them in detail.

After three years, Celeste had acquired enough knowledge to begin building instruments that bore a striking resemblance to the masterpieces he had once held in his hands. Not only their appearance, but also their sound revealed his talent. The fact that hardly any notes were found in his workshop later on suggests that his memory must have been extraordinary. Milan was not originally a city of music like Venice, nor a city of violin makers like Cremona, but a commercial city. It was a hub of domestic and international trade. Many of Celeste Farotti’s predecessors used the trade routes to sell their own instruments—or those they traded in—elsewhere in Europe.

Farotti also took advantage of this opportunity and, in this way, built up an international clientele. Beginning in 1906, he expanded his workshop to include two employees; first his brother Salvatore and later Alfredo Lanini (1891–1956), a violin maker who had studied and worked for several years with Riccardo Antoniazzi (1853–1912), another outstanding maker in Milan. Lanini continued to work for Farotti until he left for America in 1914. Without a doubt, Celeste Farotti benefited from the knowledge Lanini had gained while working with Antoniazzi. Salvatore was a carpenter and did the rough work for him. In 1909, Farotti sent his finest instruments to the international exhibition in Milan. Amid many outstanding entries, including those by Bisiach and Antoniazzi, he won his first gold medal. Many more medals would follow; he won the most important ones in Turin (1911), San Francisco (1915), and Rome (1917). The First World War led to the closure of borders, bringing the trade in instruments to a standstill. During the four years of the war, he was able to devote himself entirely to instrument making. Out of necessity, he had to do this alone; his brother Salvatore joined the army, and Lanini fled to America even before hostilities began. Despite the difficult circumstances, it proved to be a productive period for Farotti. In 1924, Celeste Farotti developed a rheumatic condition; he went to the mountains for relief but fell during a hike. Partly due to his injuries, he had to stop working. He died four years later. Shortly before his death, Celeste Farotti wrote: “From 1900, when I came to Milan, until now, I have sold so many instruments that I don’t even know approximately how many.” And further on in the same letter: “There are still three hundred violins in the workshop; ranging from old to new Italian violins, old and new violas (…), and another sixty cellos and twenty-four double basses.” Because his record-keeping left much to be desired, it is impossible to determine exactly how large his body of work is. No expert has yet ventured an estimate. Celeste Farotti never married and had no children. The workshop was taken over by the son of his brother Salvatore, Celestino Farotti.

Work and Influence

Although Farotti worked in Milan, he did not build in the Milanese style. His primary influences were Rocca (1847–1915) and Pressenda (1777–1854), who had worked in Turin and had been strongly influenced by the French school. In addition, he built numerous copies of works by other architects, some of them faithful replicas, others composed of elements from various other architects. Blot remarks that he did so in an “eclectic but tasteful” manner. He also built, among others, works based on designs by Guadagnini (1711–1786), Gagliano (c. 1710–1785), Testore (1693–c. 1765), and Landolfi (c. 1710–1784).

In previous years, many European dealers had come to Italy to buy old master instruments for very little money, but these were becoming increasingly difficult to find. Only prominent connoisseurs and dealers such as Bisiach and Farotti still had regular access to them. In his autobiographical notes, he wrote: “I could sell my antique-looking violins and cellos much more easily than the others. If I didn’t know I had built them myself, I would think they were genuine.” He himself probably did not engage in that trade, as he always labeled his instruments with his own label. But in 1924, he did write that his suspicion that they were being resold as “authentic” turned out to be true. Those instruments, bearing a fake label from an early master luthier, fetched much higher prices than a “Farotti.”

Among the buyers of Celeste’s “antique” instruments was Leandro Bisiach. Celeste Farotti’s passion for old instruments was genuine; he admired the old masters, whose instruments he was able to restore with extraordinary skill and care. He copied some of them—not for profit, but for the beauty of their appearance and sound. The best-known examples of these are his “Pressendas.” For the very same reason he copied them, these instruments are now highly sought after. He is also known to have used centuries-old beams from dilapidated buildings—and not just to make instruments that were meant to look old.

The old wood possessed tonal qualities that new wood did not yet have. His choice of wood was excellent. In his early years, he sometimes still used simple poplar wood found in the local area—a practice that was particularly common in Piedmont—but later he also opted for more expensive and beautifully figured wood. He finished his instruments with a beautiful golden-yellow varnish after experimenting at length with an intense reddish-brown varnish that was actually too hard. Over the years, Farotti’s confidence grew. His work became swift and precise. Marks left by his tools remained visible in several places.

The instrument in the collection of the Musical Instrument Fund was likely built shortly before it was submitted to the Milan exhibition, where it won a gold medal. For many years, this instrument was believed to be a “Pressenda,” but it has recently been determined that it was built by Celeste Farotti.

Sources

Bishop S., 2013, The Strad Special Edition, Londen.

Kass P. J., 2007, The Bisiach Family, Londen.

Azzolina U., Italian Violin Making in the 1800s and 1900s, Milaan.

Codazzi, R., 2002, Lombard Violin Making in the 1900s, Brescia.

Blot, E., 1994, Emilia and Romagna: A Century of Italian Violin Making, 1860–1960, Cremona.

Vannes, R., 1985, Dictionnaire Universel del Luthiers, Brussels.

Brinser M., 1978, Dictionary of 20th Century Italian Violin Makers.

Henley W., 1969, Universal Dictionary of Violin & Bow Makers. Brighton.

Iviglia G., 1953, Article about Celeste Farotti featuring his “memoirs.”

The Cozio archive, Tarisio, bezocht in 2020.

Archiviodistatomilano, visited in 2020.