Giuseppe Guarneri

Giuseppe, Andrea Guarneri’s younger son, was not just a musician but also a violinmaker in Cremona. He was instructed in his father’s workshop, which explains why the instruments built in the 1680s bearing Andrea Guarneri’s label show Giuseppes hand. It was not until after his father’s death in 1698 that instruments featured his own maker’s labels. They display the addition “filius Andreæ” (Andrea’s son), an epithet in use to this day. While Giuseppe inherited his father’s workshop and the Casa Guarneri, where he and his family continued to live after he married Barbara Franchi in 1690, he had to buy out other heirs. The debts he incurred as a result burdened him his entire life. Possibly, the political circumstances also prevented his business from prospering: Milan and its surroundings were occupied during the War of the Spanish Succession and as the region came under Austrian rule in 1707. Cremona was also hard-hit by the conflict, which may help explain the slump in Giuseppe Guarneri’s output from the 1720s. His two sons had by then become violinmakers in their own right. Records show that Pietro (born in 1695) had left Cremona and lived in Venice from 1717/1718. His younger brother, Bartolomeo Giuseppe (born in 1698), first worked together with his father and later took over Casa Guarneri. Another reason why Giuseppe Guarneri’s output diminished may have been bad health – he was admitted to hospital in 1730. Several violins built in the following years were crafted by his son Bartolomeo Giuseppe, but the scrolls were Giuseppe Guarneri’s handiwork. It may well be that he assisted his son to some extent. Giuseppe Guarneri died in early 1740.