Amedeo Simonazzi label
The label text reads “Simonazzi Amedeo, Allievo di Stefano Scarampella di Brescia, Fatto a Reggio Emilia, Anno 1943.”
The circa 1943 label of Italian violinmaker Amedeo Simonazzi used Semplicità for all of its text. The label displays whom he apprenticed, the year, and the place where the instrument was made.
Amedeo Simonazzi, born in Gualtieri in 1891, received the first rudiments of violin making from his father Oddone, a double bass player, who was also active in Egypt and France. Later the young man, as reported by his son Riccardo, often visited Stefano Scarampella in Mantua, who by then must have been quite elderly. Simonazzi’s family moved first to Santa Vittoria, and then to the main town of Reggio Emilia. Amedeo’s son became a double bass player like his grandfather and also made some instruments.
Simonazzi’s work, inspired in fact by the style of Stefano Scarampella, differs from it for the greater accuracy of the workmanship and, if less spontaneous, it yet contributes to an original mix between the Emilian and Mantuan schools. The model preferred by the luthier is that of Guarneri del Gesù for his violins, while for violas he sometimes also used the Scarampella pattern. [Scrollavezza & Zanrè]
1 Comment on “Amedeo Simonazzi label”
The lighter style definitely is Semplicità. The heavy one is similar to Semplicità toda nera, but some details are off: the A bar sits lower, the terminals in S are more vertical, M is narrower, the middle bar in E is longer, … Most notably, Semplicità doesn’t have a lowercase a. Congrats, you found an in-use example of Napoli. This 1930s geometric sans is a copy of Super-Grotesk with added Futura-like alternates for ‘AMNV’. It was shown by Fonderia Tipografica Meridionale A. De Luca in three weights, plus italics and condensed styles.