Learn Lutherie & Instrument-making in Cremona

Honest level: Beginner -> Maestro Liutaio — ask the school exactly how far that goes in the time you have.

Professional Violin Making Course (Foundational Course)

A three-year, full-time program in Cremona where students work at individual benches Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, for 880 hours a year. From wood selection and tool use through every construction phase, each student builds violins, violas or cellos by hand using the school's traditional methods, with mostly one-to-one instruction supplemented by group theory. No prior experience is required; teachers give detailed written evaluations rather than grades.

A multi-year, hands-on apprenticeship-style immersion in Cremona, the world's center of violin making, learning the carving tradition bench by bench in a small cohort.

~€15,000 per year

Masters & lineage

• The Cremonese tradition of Amati, Stradivari & Guarneri

Why Academia Cremonensis

• ★ 4.8/5 · 67 reviews on TripAdvisor ↗

— don't take my word, check it yourself

Founded and led by master luthier Giovanni Colonna, the academy teaches violin making by Simone Fernando Sacconi's method and bow making by Giovanni Lucchi's, with a 3-year violin-making and 2-year bow-making course in Cremona's historic Mina-Bolzesi palace.

Schools in Cremona

Checked by hand against each school's own course pages. No school paid to be listed.

• Academia Cremonensis
  Professional Violin Making Course (Foundational Course)
  A three-year, full-time program in Cremona where students work at individual benches Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, for 880 hours a year.
  https://academiacremonensis.org/foundational-course/
• Scuola Internazionale di Liuteria di Cremona
  Violin Making (five-year diploma)
  The Scuola Internazionale di Liuteria di Cremona, founded in 1938, is a vocational school teaching bowed-string-instrument making in the Cremonese tradition through bench labs of 10-12 students, culminating in a fifth-year apprenticeship in professional luthiers' workshops.
  https://www.scuoladiliuteria.it
• Cremona Bottega network (maestro workshops)
  This refers to the network of master violin-makers' workshops in Cremona, coordinated in part by the Consorzio Liutai "Antonio Stradivari" (over 50 masters), which arranges short guided visits where a luthier demonstrates handcrafting stages rather than running a single multi-day residential program.

The credential

Diploma of the Cremona International Violin Making School, or a recognized maestro liutaio apprenticeship · Certifying body: Scuola Internazionale di Liuteria (Cremona diploma) / traditional workshop apprenticeship

A recognised qualification an outside body stands behind is not the same as a certificate a school prints itself. We name which it is — you should ask the school the same.

Also for Lutherie & Instrument-making

What I check before I send you anywhere

I'm Arnaud. I cook for a living, and I've spent fifteen years on the water — so I know the difference between a real school and a good-looking website. I built the Atlas because I got tired of the second kind. Here is what a place has to clear before it goes on here, and what I'll tell you straight when it doesn't.

• The craft is actually alive there. A working scene, with people who do this every day — not a demo put on for visitors.
• There's a real teacher behind it. Named, still practising, and certified where the craft has certificates.
• The credential is what it claims to be. A state diploma and a certificate a school prints itself are not the same thing. I check which, and I say which.
• I tell you how sure I am. Most pages here are verified by hand. A few say "still checking" — I'd rather admit that than pretend.
• Nobody pays to be here. No commission, no selling the trip. The order on this map is the strength of the community, never the size of the wallet.
• If I wouldn't send a friend, it isn't on the map.