The Cozio Archive
Welcome to Cozio, the world’s largest reference resource for buyers, sellers and connoisseurs of fine stringed instruments and bows.
Founded in 2003 as a public registry of iconography, provenance and pricing information for historical stringed instruments, Cozio encompasses over 36,000 individual instruments and bows by over 3,500 makers. It is also the most comprehensive online source for maker biographies and provenance information, and contains over 57,000 historical auction prices.
Although most of Cozio is available to the public by subscription, it also contains photographs, documents and records of instruments and bows that are accessible only by request. If you would like information about any item that is not publicly available, please contact us.
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Latest Feature
Youth and experience: One of Stradivari’s earliest violins, revisited in his Golden Period
The ‘Salabue, Matsuda’ is one of the very first violins that Stradivari ever made. It is handsome, remarkably well preserved and rich in history. But the most exciting part of its story is that it has a unique and special secret: the front of the ‘Salabue’ was purposely re-made by Stradivari himself, more than fifty years later, in c. 1716, at the height of his Golden Period.
By Jason PricePrior to the 18th century, there was no real industry of violin restorers and repairers. If an instrument was damaged — such as a broken head or a crack to the front — a violin maker was more likely to replace that part than repair it. Today, modern restorers go to great lengths to preserve […]
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