Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue

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Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue (born March 14, 1755 in Casale Monferrato , † December 15, 1840 in Salabue , today a district of Casale Monferrato) was an Italian violin dealer, collector and specialist. Through his inventory and description of valuable violins and tools for violin making from Antonio Stradivari's time , numerous details about valuable instruments as well as violin making itself have come down to us.

life and work

Ignazio Alessandro Cozio was born as the youngest son of Carlo Alessandro and the Marchesa Taddea Balbiani in March 1755 in Casale Monferrato. He came from a long-established family that had many members in the clergy , in the judiciary and in the military. In 1665 Cozio's ancestor Carlo Francesco was raised to the rank of count by Duke Carlo II Gonzaga and received a manor. His great-grandson Carlo Alessandro, Cozio's father, like Cozio himself, emerged as a music lover in addition to his passion for chess. Carlo Alessandro bought a violin from Nicola Amati around 1720, dated 1668 . He passed this passion for the violin on to his son Ignazio Alessandro Cozio, who was to become one of the most intensive collectors and an important specialist in violin and violin making.

Building the collection

He was first a student at the Military Academy of Turin. After the death of his father, he gave up this military career and went back to Casale Monferrato to manage his estates. Even when he did not actually study music, he learned to play some string instruments. Music academies and concerts were held in his aristocratic circles. He also entered into trade relations with the Turin violin maker Giovanni Battista Guadagnini . The contacts and conversations he had with Guadagnini led him to increasingly deeper studies of violin making , especially the Cremonese violin making. He now collected instruments from the Amatis , the Guarneris and the Stradivari and documented their special design features so that these instruments could serve as models for later generations of violin makers. With such a claim he entered into negotiations in 1775 with Paolo Stradivari , the last son and heir of the great violin maker. From this he bought ten finished, further unfinished violins as well as special tools for violin making from the genetic material. These instruments and tools, such as B. the famous violin example Il Messia (The Messiah) also called the violin of Salabue , formed the core of one of the most important violin collections and trading platforms for high-quality violins that had ever existed. This collection was expanded even after the death of Guadagnini in September 1786, who worked as a technical advisor for the development of the collection. Among the more than one hundred instruments that the collection comprised at its peak, there were violins by Stradivari, his sons Francesco and Omobono , by Gioachino and Giovanni Cappa , by students and replicas of Amati, by the brothers Antonio and Girolamo Amati , by Andrea , Giuseppe Giovanni , Pietro Guarneri and Giovanni Guarneri del Gesù , by Francesco and Giovanni Battista Ruggieri , by Carlo Bergonzi , Giovan Battista Guadagnini and Jakob Stainer .

Dissolution of the collection

The wars fought in Piedmont as a result of the French Revolution radically changed the situation of the violin collector and dealer Cozio. Cozio entrusted a large part of his valuable collection to the Milanese banker and violin lover and friend of Nicolo Paganini and Alessandro Rolla Carlo Carli . In this environment he also got to know the violin makers Pietro and Giovanni Mantegazza . These two violin makers restored some of the violins from the collection. Carli sold a Stradivarius from the collection to Paganini. Carli also received Cozio's permission to sell violins from the collection. Cozio also devoted himself to public tasks during this time. He took over the office of mayor of Casale for two periods, systematically collected documents on local history during the time of the French occupation and wrote the work On the ancient statutes of the city of Casale . He later donated the municipal archive to the Royal Library of Turin as the Cozio Collection .

Cozio's collection of instruments shrank through sales. After Cozio's death, Luigi Tarisio bought remnants of instruments and violin making tools almost at bargain prices from those inexperienced in this business, the son of the banker Carli and the daughter Matilda von Cozio. Some of Stradivari's violin making tools and plans went to the Marchese Rolando Dalla Valle in Milan. This collection was donated to the City Museum in Cremona.

Cozio's violin making notes reveal professional care in the inventory and description of the instruments. He also described instruments that belonged to other collectors with the aim of reviving the great tradition of Italian violin making. Cozio's documentation of outstanding violins still provides valuable information on these instruments today.

Literature by Ignazio Alessandro Cozio

  • Count Ignazio Alessandro Cozio di Salabue: Memoirs of a Violin Collector . Translated from Italian into English and edited by Brandon Frazier, Baltimore 2007. ISBN 978-0-9799429-0-7

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Sergio Martinotti: Cozio, Ignazio Alessandro conte di Salabue. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani.
  2. ↑ a b c d section after: Sergio Martinotti: Cozio, Ignazio Alessandro conte di Salabue. In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani.
personal data
SURNAME Cozio di Salabue, Ignazio Alessandro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian violin dealer, collector and specialist
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Casale Monferrato
DATE OF DEATH December 15, 1840
Place of death Salabue (now part of Casale Monferrato )