Stradivari's city — where the world's finest violins are made and torrone nougat was invented
Cremona is a small Po Valley city in Lombardy with two improbable claims to international fame: it is the undisputed capital of fine violin making (Antonio Stradivari, Nicolò Amati, and the Guarneri family all worked here), and it invented torrone — the hard nougat made from honey, eggs, almonds, and hazelnuts now associated with Italian Christmas. The city's Piazza del Comune is dominated by the tallest pre-industrial brick tower in Europe, the Torrazzo (112m), and the Cathedral's triptych of baptistery, bell tower, and loggia dei militi is one of the finest Romanesque ensemble in northern I…
Cremona was a Roman colony founded in 218 BCE at the confluence of the Po and Adda rivers — one of the oldest cities in Lombardy. It was sacked and destroyed by the Visigoths in 603 CE and rebuilt by the Lombards. The violin-making tradition began with Andrea Amati (c.1505–1577), who is credited with inventing the modern four-string violin. His grandson Nicolò Amati taught Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737) and Andrea Guarneri — the founding of two dynasties that between them made the most valuable instruments in human history. Today over 150 active luthiers still work in Cremona, making it the o…