In Cremona, the early makers glued the saddle onto the surface of the rib, extending it directly upwards through the top. These saddles are all gone, but once in a while, as on this beautiful Carlo Bergonzi violin, one gets to see the shadow of what originally was there,
Laser scans of the top and back of a Brothers Amati violin reveal its entire arching. View still shots and a short video.
Cremonese edgework starts from edge thickness. Almost invariably, the thickness of the unworn edge on a Cremonese violin (in the upper and lower bouts, not the corners and c-bouts, which run by different rules) is equal to or slightly less than the distance from the edge to the purfling. This leads to the easy conclusion …
