About the maker
The great connoisseur and collector of violins, Count Alessandro Cozio Salabue, quoted in his notes the Marche maker Giuseppe Odoardi. Not surprisingly, together with those of Mariani, Pallotta, and Postacchini, his instruments are judged to be amongst the masterpieces of the Marche region.
The history
The volume ‘The Makers of Central Italy’ by Florian Leonhard reports many previously unpublished information on makers from the Marche and Umbria regions of Italy, such as Odoardi. Giuseppe Odoardi was born in 1746 into a farming family in Poggio di Bretta, in the current province of Ascoli Piceno. He was also a self-taught maker like most of the luthiers from the Marche region, devoting himself in the beginning to repairing and making instruments for his local community, mainly farmers and artisans. There is evidence of the fame of his instruments even amongst professional musicians present in this Italian region during his lifetime. Unfortunately, there is no precise date or place registered for his death; he probably died in Poggio di Bretta around 1786.
References
Leonhard Florian, The Makers of Central Italy. Cremona: Edizioni Novecento, 2011.
Consistent quirks
Odoardi had been a prolific maker during his short life, and can certainly be argued to be the finest violin maker in the Marche region during his lifetime. His instruments are individualistic in style, with their scrolls having an idiosyncratic style featuring a high forehead crowning the very symmetrically carved volute, and the hooked last turn into the eye. The “whites” of the purfling material are often of a highly reflecting yellowish-creamy appearance, which pronounce the well flowing outline. More details in The Makers of Central Italy by Leonhard Florian.
