Luthier / Bowmaker

Girolamo Amati II, son of Nicolo, grandson of Girolamo, and great-grandson of Andrea Amati, had the good fortune to be born into the Amati family, and the bad luck to have come of age during the most competitive era of violin-making in Italy. By the time Girolamo II inherited the shop from his aging father Nicolo in the late 1670s, there were at least a dozen active makers in Cremona, including such luminaries as Francesco and Vincenzo Ruggieri, Andrea Guarneri, and the young Antonio Stradivari. By the time Nicolo died in 1684, leaving the shop entirely in the hands of Girolamo II, Stradivari had already established himself as the new genius of Cremona, and violin-making was expanding quickly to other cities -- especially Milan, Venice, Mantua, Bologna, Rome and Naples.

Girolamo persevered for a number of years and produced some fine instruments, but the relative dearth of instruments from this maker attests to his struggle to make a living in the new, highly competitive environment. In 1697, Girolamo left Cremona and moved to Piacenza for unknown reasons, though likely due to legal or financial difficulties. He returned to Cremona in 1715 and remained there until his death until 1740, but there are very few of his instruments dated after 1700.