Vincenzo Bissolotti

Born in Soresina (Cremona province), 13 May 1958.
When Vincenzo was twelve years old he already frequented his father's workshop showing an early inclination for violinmaking and a great interest for musical instruments.
In 1972 he enrolled in the Cremona Violinmaking School where he was taught by his father.
The school and his father's workshop were one during these years where he acquired an excellent command of violinmaking technique. After only two years of study he made a beautiful baroque lute under his father's guidance, an instrument presently preserved in the school museum and often displayed during exhibitions.
Vincenzo designed all parts of the instrument, including the accessories, and the entire effort is both harmonic and creative, especially in the design of the rosette of the belly.
He graduated in 1976; in 1980 he began teaching, a position which he still holds today. Over the past twenty years he has trained many students, always maintaining an excellent relationship of cordiality and friendship.
He is always at the disposal to his ex-students who periodically return to visit him.
At the school he pratically substituted his father in the role of violinmaking professor where they both taught from the years 1980 until 1983. Like his father he continues to teach the system of Cremonese construction using the internal mould, a system he successfully uses in his own work.
A very talented violinmaker with a calm and meditative personality, Vincenzo is meticulous and precise in his work and teaching; he dedicates great attention to working details. His work is clean and harmonious, and he displays considerable mastery in the workmanship and use of tools. The scrolls of his instruments are very precise with particularly clean carving and great elegance.
He makes the entire range of string and plucked instruments but he mostly dedicates himself to violins, violas, violoncellos, double basses, baroque lutes and classical guitars. He to, like his father and brothers, is a profound admirer and appraiser of the old Cremonese violinmakers and he uses them as a reference; he also appreciates the antique Brescian School, and the Milanese School represented by the Testore family. A very meticulous craftsman, he dedicates a great deal of time and care to the varnish which exalts the quality of his work.
He makes very few instruments per year, since most of his time is absorbed by teaching. He takes approximately a month to make an instrument in the white and two months to varnish, using a spirit varnish identical to the one used by his father. He has never participated in exhibitions or competitons. A quiet and reserved violinmaker, he expresses himself in the high quality of his work and teaching for which he has an inborn predisposition.