Sanctus Seraphin
Greetings, there is much talk about the Amati family, the Guarneri family, the Stradivaris, and Galianos but there is not much information I can find anywhere really on the maker Sanctus Seraphin. I pulled up a few short articles on him online, and according to them they said he was a student and apprentice to Niccolo Amati. According to what I read Seraphin made violins in a similar style with high arching like Niccolo Amati's instruments.
He was also somewhat of perhaps a slight narcissist (according to what I read) he would carve or brand his initials into the body of some of his instruments.
The articles also claimed he was an extremely successful and popular maker in his time, yet today there are probably less than a 100 known instruments of his that have been accounted for worldwide. Have any of you come across a Sanctus Seraphin violin before? I'd be interested if you know of any good books or articles on this maker.
I believe Jascha Heifetz had a violin in his teaching studio that was either a Sanctus Seraphin or a violin modeled after one of Seraphin's violins (it's either one or the other I can't remember).
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I used to play in a band with, and live in a flat above, a violinist who plays a Santo Serafin. One that his parents bought from Beares, and paid proper money for.
GORGEOUS looking fiddle. Very fine work. Exquisite outline and modelling. Finely crafted scroll. just perfect. Beautiful liquid varnish.
But it didn't sound great: thinnish, nasal, and with little power. Poor G-string.
But what a beautiful violin!
gc
I saw one at Ifshin violins many years ago, and I have a casting from another. There’s a very nice set of photos available of a really dazzling one in birdseye. I think Amatibooks carries it, it’s put out by Cremonabooks I believe? Some of his instruments can be seen in the catalogue of the Paris exhibition of Venetian instruments.
It’s quite a leap to judge his character from the stamps on his instruments. He does seem to have been very fussy, but what he was responding to with the stamping is just an unknown at this point. He is not the only maker to have stamped his instruments certainly.
Some of his instruments may have been modeled after Nicolo Amati, but he definitely modeled many instruments after the Brothers Amati. I think the above-mentioned instrument in birdseye may even say as much on the label.
A concert violinist who was the former CM of the Minneapolis uses one and went through hell to get it over the years. He loves it with a passion. Listening to his CD's the violin sounds gorgeous.
For the little it's worth, I saw and briefly played a violin of Seraphin's from 1734 (Venice) at the Cremona Exhibit at Claire Givens Violins in Minneapolis in October 2004. It was priced well into 6 figures (though I don't know if it was actually for sale), and certainly justifiably: my notes say it had a rich, dark, mysterious and rather unique sound.
Around 1990 or 91, there were two (allegedly) put up for auction at Skinner's. I don't think either sold.
The one I liked died at around $110,000 in the bidding. I still think about that instrument-- wow, that was a nice one. After I tried it out, a young woman came up to me and asked if I was taking students. :-)
I asked this guy about his Seraphin one day on the phone, it was over a half hour later that he even slowed down talking about it.
There is a catalog of an Exhibition of the Venice School in Paris, with good photos of instruments and some comments about experts.
I think Charles Beare is working on a book about the Venetian School.
This is an interesting site about the Venetian School, by Stefano Pio, who published some books on the Venetian Makers:
http://www.veniceresearch.com/
I think in the days Heifetz made his NY debut, the Totoni wouldn't have been a very expensive violin. Good luck finding more about S. You'll hit on one you can play or own sooner or later. Those more little-known old makers were great reading and pondering for me.
The Serafin String Quartet, in Wilmington DE, is named after the Serafin instrument owned by the first violinist. Note the alternate spelling. Two of my daughters had a quartet, for six years, that they called "Seraphina" in homage to the Serafin quartet because my violist-daughter's teacher was that quartet's violist at the time of his untimely death in a traffic accident. (Note the alternate spellings-- spelling used to be mushier than it is today.)
I seem to recall reading that Francescatti and Arnold Steinhardt owned one at one point.
Supposedly he was Jewish. I saw a Sanctus cello a few years ago. Stunning instruments, among the best of the Old Italians. They CAN sound magnificent.
OK
Bill I just found a very good book given to me many years ago here in my library about prominent violin makers from Italy. In the book it speaks of Seraphin and I will quote directly from the text: "A celebrated Italian maker born at Udine near Venice in 1665..As an eclectic maker he imbued Stainer, Amati, and even Maggini ideas into his basically Venetian design.." According to this book, Nicolo Amati lived from 1596-1684 so Seraphin very well could have worked with Amati.
Nate, I think that much of the "information" in circulation about old Italian violinmakers (and maybe other violinmakers, too) is very unreliable. Much of it seems to have been concocted by dealers eager to enhance the value of their violins and others without direct knowledge of the facts, and passed along uncritically over the years.
If a particular violinmaker's violins showed some features that suggested a familiarity with Nicolo Amati's instruments (and probably many violinmakers of the time sought to emulate Amati), someone along the line might have hypothesized that he was a student of Amati and made a rough stab at a birthdate consistent with this, and someone else would have retailed these guesses as fact--perhaps a dealer with a violin from a less well-known and non-Cremonese violinmaker on his hands, in order to fetch a higher price. That's how these things get started, and then they get passed on from one "authority" to the next. The contradictory Wikipedia articles on Serafin and Amati illustrate the results of this process.
I have no idea when Serafino was born, but I've seen the 1699 date elsewhere, in "respectable" authorities. And if he was making violins into the 1740s, 1699 seems more probable, although 1665 isn't impossible, either.
It's not necessarily impossible to find out the truth. Baptismal and census records going back to medieval times are in existence for many Italian communities, and I think there are some contemporary researchers who are actually taking the trouble to document the lives and careers of the old Italian violinmakers, especially those who worked in Cremona and Venice. And I believe Amati's apprentices can usually be identified because they would have lived in his house while studying with him and would have been recorded there in the census records for that time. But going to Udine and Venice and Cremona and poring through difficult-to-read records to find a needle in the haystack is less convenient than simply copying a date that has already found its way into print.
In sum, I think that much of what is found in books about old Italian violinmakers has to be taken with a large dose of salt. And maybe it doesn't matter, anyway, what year a violinmaker was born or whom he studied with, if his violins have stood the test of time.
I read threads like this and it makes me realize anew how little I really know about violins/violin makers/violin history. I feel as though I'm sitting in a master class....thank you, all.
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March 31, 2009 at 03:16 PM ·
The Wikipedia article on Santo Serafin states that he was born in 1699 and was a student of Nicolo Amati.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctus_Seraphin
The Wikipedia article on Nicolo Amati states that he died on April 12, 1684.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolo_Amati
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