During my stay in Italy in 2002, the book series “Italian & French Violin Makers” was created. Since 1998, I have repeatedly photographed outstanding and well-certified instruments in collaboration with the photographer Jan Röhrmann. The quality of his photos became so good that I considered putting them together in a series as a large-format photo documentation. However, since I did not want to divide the instruments into geographical areas, but wanted to show with each subsequent volume a “piece of the cake” of 400 years of violin making history in Italy and France, the two most important nations in violin making, the instruments were published in a certainly unusual compilation. With the release of the third volume, the market accepted this concept and has since looked forward to each new volume, which over time allows this documentation to grow into a reference work. This means there is still the opportunity to add a few pieces of Italian and French violin making with each new volume. An alphabetical index in each volume makes searching easier for the user. The 1:1 recordings and short biographies in English, German, French, Italian and Japanese enable both violin makers (80% of buyers) and violin lovers around the world to use these books as reference books. Measurements and CT images as well as the essays by Bruce Carlson (Cremona), Igor Moroder (Turin), Florian Leonhard (London), J.F. Schmitt (Lyon) complete the work. 100 limited sets were bound in leather. The Library Edition was published in a total circulation of 2000 copies.
