Cremona is the city where the violin was born grown-up: Amati perfected it, Guarneri sculpted it, Stradivari made it legend. The museum gathers the original instruments — the named Stradivari, the Vesuvio, the Cremonese of 1715 — in caskets of light, and tells the workshop: moulds, secret varnishes, resonance woods chosen in the Fiemme valley.
The coup de théâtre is the Arvedi auditorium, where the tester-luthier makes historic instruments "speak" in daily auditions.
Our tip: check the audition times and build your visit around them: hearing a Stradivarius played ten metres away is worth the journey. Then, in the workshops of the centre, today's luthiers work with doors open: step in.