Enrico Ceruti or
Cerutti, né
Riccardo Fabio Ceruti (4 May 1806, Cremona — 21 October 1883,
Ibid.) was an Italian luthier, maker of violins and other bowed stringed instruments, and contrabassist who flourished in Cremona from circa 1825 till 1882. Son and apprentice of
Giuseppe Antonio Ceruti (1785—1860) and grandson of
Giovanni Battista Ceruti (1756—1817), Enrico is commonly hailed as the last "canonical" Cremonese luthier. Trained by his father in both violin-making and contrabass performance, Enrico Ceruti eventually opened his independent workshop at Via Borgo Spera. After [url=/artist/14951885]Giuseppe Antonio[/url] left for Mantua in May 1838 with the rest of his family, Enrico effectively became the sole active luthier in Cremona, at least with a long-standing familial pedigree. According to the early reference literature, Cerutti excelled and reached prosperity by virtually every measure. He made over 360 violins and cellos throughout a career spanning almost six decades, sought after by Italian orchestral players at the time. Ceruti won several awards, including 1851 and 1870 silver medals in London for his violins, and the 1863 gold medal in Cremona, and kept exhibiting as late as 1881 in Milan (when Enrico was already 75). He worked with leading violin-dealers in London and Paris, like [url=/artist/5352386]J.B. Vuillaume[/url] (1798—1875) and Luigi Tarisio (1796–1854). Curiously, a few contemporary scholars contradicted such assessments with claims that Ceruti only reached modest commercial success and failed to win over English and French customers, all obsessed with
[url=/artist/3610124]Stradivarius[/url] and
[url=/artist/6058721]del Gesùs[/url] replicas and, reportedly, disinterested in Ceruti's original violin outline (mostly inspired by the work of his elder relatives and [url=/artist/16154553]Carlo Bergonzi[/url]).
Virtually nothing is known about Enrico Ceruti's family life; presumably, he had at least two adult children, as suggested by circumstantial evidence:
♀ Amalia (18??—??): found in Mantova census records in the early 1840s, when she visited her grandfather,
Giuseppe Antonio Ceruti (as described by Philip J. Kass in his June 2017 article for the Tarisio website, "
Giuseppe Ceruti in Mantua," citing
Duane Rosengard's latest findings).
♂ Paolo (18??—1876): mentioned as recently deceased in Enrico's letter dated 17 October 1876 and addressed to his friend, Cremonese violinist and collector
Giovanni Battista Cerani (first mentioned in Eric Blot's 1995 book "
Un Secolo Di Liuteria Italiana, 1860-1960: Vol II: Lombardia e Veneto," and further reproduced and quoted in Gianpaolo Gregori's 2014 monograph "The Inventories of luthiery relics in Cremona" on his website
Archivio della Liuteria Cremonèse).
Coincidentally, G.B. Cerani later remarried Paolo Ceruti's widow and Enrico's daughter-in-law,
Michelina (18??—ca.1883), and inherited a priceless collection of 360 antique tools, moulds, and patterns amassed by Enrico Ceruti; besides his family archives, it featured relics from
Lorenzo Storioni's workshop and, reportedly, some items procured from
Giacomo II Stradivari (1822—1901), Antonio's great-great-grandson, via Casa Stradivari's final heir,
Paolo Bartolomeo Stradivari (1708—1776). In February 1893, Cerani donated this collection to Cremona's Civic Museum, where it formed a "Cremonese Musicians and Violin-Makers Room" permanent exposition. (Subsequently, it branched out as
[url=/label/4222622]Museo del Violino[/url].)
Besides the unique collection, Ceruti's most significant and impactful contribution to the history of Cremonese luthiery was through teaching and mentoring. According to
Gennady Filimonov, Enrico played a crucial role by maintaining a direct "mentor-disciple" lineage from the [url=/artist/9036829]Storioni[/url] and [url=/artist/16154553]Bergonzi[/url]'s era to the present-day Cremonese revival. One of his apprentices,
Gaetano Antoniazzi (1825—1897), trained his sons and pupils,
Riccardo (1853—1912) and
Romeo Antoniazzi (1862—1925); in turn, they mentored
Leandro Bisiach (1864—1945) and
Ferdinando Garimberti (1894—1982). Later on, in September 1938, Bisiach served on the international expert committee during the launch of
Scuola Internazionale di Liuteria Cremona ("International Violin Making School"); Garimberti taught on the faculty for several years after World War II, from 1963 to 1966.
Labels☞ Both printed and manuscript, with identical text and layout
☞ Some had alternative initials,
R.F.C. (for his legal name "
Riccardo Fabio"), or "dotted" cross
⁜ instead of Maltese
☞ Additional "heraldic" seal with encircled initials 'G.E.C.' surmounted by
☩ Jerusalem cross
Enricus Ceruti fecit ✠
Cremonæ anno 18𝟩𝟢 E. F. C. 
