About the maker
Andrea Postacchini is considered the Stradivari of the Marche region, whose instruments are among the best examples from this regional Italian school.
The history
Andrea Postacchini, like most luthiers in the Marche region, was self-taught, and there is no evidence of his contact with other contemporary makers active in the region with whom he could have studied. Andrea Postacchini was born into a family of wealthy farmers in 1781, in Fermo, in the province of Ascoli Piceno. After his father’s death, he was oriented towards an ecclesiastical career, during which he probably approached the craft of violin making. However, once he was forced to leave orders at the age of 28, he steadily devoted himself to constructing bowed and plucked instruments, producing his best instruments. He was also known as a bow maker and restorer. There is evidence of his participation in exhibitions, such as the one of arts and crafts that took place in Florence in 1861. Andrea died in Fermo in 1862 and had no heirs to his art, apart from the attested collaboration for a time with his son Raffaele, before the latter took religious vows.
References
Leonhard Florian, The Makers of Central Italy. Cremona: Edizioni Novecento, 2011.
Consistent quirks
Andrea Postacchini’s production is uneven; his early making differs significantly from his later work, representing his best period. This led to the assumption in the past that we were even dealing with two different luthiers. Instead, his work is the result of a self-taught apprenticeship, based on analysis and observation of instruments that came to hand, and supported by his great manual skill in woodworking. From c.1830 to 1840 he changed his style in a way where one can still see some traits of his earlier period, but towards the end of that decade his style had become the precise, refined style that he continued with until the end of his career. His f holes moved further apart, allowing more space between the top holes, and often extremely close to the C’s.
Postacchini intuitively created well-functioning archings that were neither too high, nor pinched, nor too widely channelled, which allows for a well-balanced and projecting sound. He produced several smaller proportioned instruments which don’t have the projection of his slightly larger instruments.
