The Strad / Digital Amati T-Shirt

For its first ever T-shirt, The Strad has teamed up with Harry Mairson, a computer science professor and cello maker who directs Digital Amati, a project using computer technology to enhance our understanding of classical stringed instrument design.

The T-shirt exhibits the renowned Stradivari 1700 ‘Stauffer, ex-Cristiani’ cello, now in the collection of the Fondazione Stauffer and on display at Cremona’s Museo del Violino. Depicted together with the image of the ‘Cristiani’ is a geometric drawing of a Stradivari cello, using the methods of François Denis’s book Traité de Lutherie: The Violin and the Art of Measurement.

François’s geometric insights and proportional methods, founded on Renaissance straightedge and compass constructions, are realised here with software developed by the Digital Amati project, useful for historical analysis of famous instruments, and design of new instruments based upon them.

This software was used to re-proportion the original ‘Cristiani’, reducing its important dimensions to those of Stradivari’s later ‘forma B’ cellos, except for a rounder lower bout. Many luthiers have now made this revised model, using internal forms produced in 2015 at the Oberlin Violin Making Workshop by this redesign, then output for CNC routing. The software was also used in 2017 to explore the design space for the ‘Obiealto’ viola project, also at the Oberlin Workshop. Both projects were reported on in The Strad (November 2016 and September 2017).

Be among the first to wear this 100% high-quality cotton T-shirt that illustrates the synergy of art and science, which in the Renaissance were one and the same thing. One quarter of the proceeds will be donated to the Friends of Stradivari at Cremona’s Museo del Violino, helping to sustain this remarkable museum.