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Fortunato Piromalli

$15,000

645 mm Scale, 51 mm Nut. Beautifully carved headstock. 7 finely sanded Fan Braces. Separate kerfing pieces attaching the top and back to the sides. Very Very Fine grained Cedar Soundboard (40-45 grains to the inch.) and Satinwood back and sides. Throughout history: Francois Roudhloff, Enrique Garcia, Francisco Simplicio, Lester De Voe, Tobias Braun and other luthiers have used Satinwood back and sides to make fine guitars.

A very loud and resonant guitar, and this may well be the oldest Cedar top Classical guitar, the person I got it from thought it was made in 1940, 12 years before the documentation of Pietro Gallinotti or Manuel de la Chica known to have fabricated with Cedar.

According to Rene Vannes, Nicolini Gualtiero, William Henley, Karel Jalovec and Marlin Brinser: Fortunato Piromalli was born in 1909 in Reggio Calabria, Italy and emigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he studied with Matteo Bruni (1884-1964) and became his assistant. Maestro Bruni had been a student of Gaetano Sgarabotto, (from 1900-1904) later an assistant to A. Pollastri (between 1913 and 1921) and G. Capalbo (in Buenos Aires in 1927, when Matteo emigrated to Argentina.) , Bruni won various prizes at the exhibition in Cremona in 1949. It has been said in 3 sources (Rene Vannes, William Henley and Karel Jalovec) that in 1945, Fortunato Piromalli became independent and was situated on calle Carlos Calvo, Buenos Aires.

On his violin label the text is: Fortunato Piromalli, (Liutaio) Alumno del Maestro MATEO BRUNI, Anno, Buenos Aires.

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