Stradivarius' Violins

Antonio Stradivarius lived in Italy from 1644 to 1737. The violins he made are now the most prized instruments in the world because of the rich, resonant sound they produce. But Stradivarius did not use expensive wood for his violins.

Instead they were carved from discarded lumber. Stradivarius was very poor and could not afford fine materials like his contemporaries, so he picked up waterlogged pieces of wood from the dirty harbors where he lived and cleaned them up. From such trash he created instruments of rare beauty. Today we know that while that wood floated in those dirty harbors, microbes were eating out the center of those cells, leaving just the fibrous infrastructure.

The hollow chambers made the wood more resonant. From wood that nobody wanted, Stradivarius produced violins that everybody wants.