Giuseppe Antonio Ceruti (20 August 1785, Sesto Cremonese — 31 August 1860, Mantua) was an Italian luthier and maker of violins, cellos, and other bowed stringed instruments active in Cremona and Mantua. Trained and apprenticed under his renowned father,
Giovanni Battista Ceruti (1756—1817), Giuseppe further passed the family tradition to his son,
Enrico Ceruti (1806—1883). He was the least prolific maker in the dynasty, with only around 25 extant and documented violins (plus a few violoncellos), dated between ca.1809 and 1858. According to several early authors, including Cecie Stainer in "
Dictionary of Violin Makers" (1890) and Karel Jalovec in his 1952 "
Italian Violin Makers," Giuseppe Ceruti was renowned for restoring antique Cremonese instruments. A variety of evidence also suggests that Cerutti practiced luthiery intermittently, in parallel with other professions.
Curiously, Giuseppe Antonio never left
Casa Ceruti and continued to reside at the family house long after he married
Amalia "Bacchetta" Boccalari (18??—1849) around 1805; presumably, he kept working as Giambattista's assistant and journeyman. The earliest definitively attributed and dated Giuseppe's violin is from 1816. Notably, his profession was listed as
fabbricatore di violini, clarinetti ed intagliatore ("maker of violins, clarinets, and carver") in the April 1817 census conducted shortly after G. B. Ceruti's death. Most researchers hypothesize that such diversity in Giuseppe's vocation was a forced measure, due to the major decline of the Cremonese luthiery market at the dawn of the 19th century; Ceruti had to rely on menial woodworking and, reportedly, playing bass with local ensembles, to supplement his income and support the growing family. Between 1818 and 1823, Ceruti lived on Contrada Colonna, subsequently moving to
Casa Tressi (on present-day Corso Garibaldi), adjacent to ex-
Antonio Stradivari's "Casa Nuziale." Around 1830, Giuseppe's family once again relocated to Contrada Rota (now Via Milazzo), across from the residence of his 25-year-old son,
Enrico Ceruti; at this point, both Giuseppe and Enrico appeared simply as
fabbrica di strumenti ("instrument-makers") in the census.
In May 1838, Giuseppe Ceruti left Cremona and relocated to Mantua with his wife and two daughters, Elisa and Clato, as well as his elderly mother,
Margherita Bardelli. (Until recently, all sources claimed that Ceruti settled in Mantua at least 20 years later. In June 2017, Philip J. Kass documented the latest findings of his colleague,
Duane Rosengard, in the Tarisio website article, confirming that Giuseppe left his hometown much earlier and retracing the maker's activities after the 1840s.) Within two years, Cerutis gained permanent residency in Mantua. Based on the city's archives, Giuseppe was renting a workshop on Via Saint Silvestro in 1844, near the flourishing Teatro Sociale, Mantova, and lived in a separate house nearby. Ceruti remained active as a luthier in Mantua, with at least six violins and one cello dated 1846–48. Curiously, he continued using
Cremonensis ("from Cremona") inscriptions on most of these instruments, and the explicit mentions of Mantua or nearby cities only appear on very few mid-1850s labels. In parallel to violin-making, Giuseppe Ceruti got even more involved in other artisanal crafts, referred to in various archival documents as "maker of geodetic instruments" and "turner" (metal-cutter), as well as simply "mechanic." In 1848, he filed a patent for a curious mechanical contraption that turned score pages on a piano.
Between 1851 and 1856, Giuseppe Ceruti lived in San Benedetto Po, a small town 15 km southeast of Mantua (presumably, fleeing certain political unrest in the city). He continued working as a luthier and submitted two violins to the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris; Giuseppe became one of only two Italian makers to earn the "Honorable Mention" award at the expo, along with [url=/artist/6536167]Giuseppe A. Rocca[/url] (1807—1865). After returning to Mantua, Ceruti lived with his daughter and son-in-law. His last known violin is dated 1858, when Ceruti was 73; Giuseppe Antonio died two years later.
LabelsIn stark contrast to his father, who used nearly identical labels throughout his career, G. A. Ceruti left an astoundingly diverse variety, from simplistic handwritten inserts to printed, decorated labels with loquacious Latin inscriptions. (Such inconsistency further implies that Giuseppe, unlike his relatives, was only engaged in luthiery irregularly.) However, he adopted and consistently used a family emblem, directly replicating [url=/artist/9040408]Giambattista[/url]'s design — encircled capital initials, "
𝗚 𝗖," surmounted by a Jerusalem cross
☩. The mark was applied directly to wood by branding iron inside the deck, typically near the label; sometimes, additionally stamped on paper.
➵ Printed, long narrow rectangle, unframed, plain typeface, stamped 'G.C.' emblem:
Joseph Ceruti filius Joannis Baptistæ
Cremonensis fecit anno 18𝟻𝟻
⟨G C ☩⟩➵ Printed, large rectangle, decorative frame with 'fleur-de-lys' ⚜ pattern:
Joseph Ceruti Filius Jo: Baptistæ
Cremonensis
fecit Cremonæ an. 18𝟷𝟿.➵ Printed (per W.L.F. von Lütgendorff):
Josephus Cerutti filius Joannis Baptis-
tæ Cremonensis fecit anno 18𝟥𝟢☞ Handwritten, oversized rectangle, thick parchment paper; 'G.C.' emblem both stamped on the label and brandished above (upside-down):
𝒢iuseppe 𝒞eruti 𝒞remonese
𝒻ece in ℬozzolo di ℳantova
～ 𝓁 anno 𝟷𝟾𝟻𝟻 ～☞ Handwritten, small rectangular, double-stamped with 'G.C.' emblem:
Giuseppe Ceruti
Mantova 1856 
