22-10-2025

Captain Coreli's Mandolin.

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The mandolin had been left in a garage where it had got wet and damp, most of the glue joints had separated and the mother of pearl decoration had fallen off.

All the bits were cleaned and reassembled, rather like a jigsaw.

Luigi Corradotti the maker was active in Rome between the last years of 19th century and about 1910 and this instrument dates from around 1898. He was a good maker, specialising in Neapolitan mandolins and also built fiddles. For many years together with Luigi Salsedo another fine maker, he was in charge of making mandolins for Voigt & company who exported to UK and Germany.

From the early 1800’s, Naples had over a hundred luthiers working there making violins, guitars and mandolins and was regarded as the centre of excellence for stringed instruments. Some makers such as Calace and Vinaccia built all of the components themselves but there were also specialists known as “cassari” who only built the bowls.

Other workers called “corallari” (coral and mother of pearl trades) specialised in the decoration and many came from the city of Torre del Greco just up the coast from Naples where mother of pearl and coral had been turned into decoration since Roman times.

The quality of the bowls and decoration were excellent as each luthier became really skilled in their chosen speciality so that the resulting end product was probably better than from a workshop where the luthier made everything.

It's great when a team builds itself.The instrument was missing the most important inlay, on the headstock and so a new mother of pearl vase and floral display typical of the time was designed and cut using the laser cutter was used to cut the shape in the ebony veneer for the new inlay. By scanning the ebony vebeer and transferring it to the laser an absolute perfec tfit was achieved. Dave Moore of woodturning fame developed a method where we could also make a replica of the original bridge in ebony, far more skill in that than in the laser cutting..

The instrument is now fully strung and working.

Author: Jon Hunnisett