The model of this viola is very wide and large, resembling the one typical of the Venetian violin maker Domenico Montagnana (1686-1750). The body and sides are in maple, and so are the headstock and inserted neck (not original), while the sound board is made up of two pieces of spruce. Inside the instrument we find some linings in poplar, and others (perhaps replaced at a later date) in spruce. Very little biographical information is known about the maker, Giovanni Battista Bodio. He only worked in Venice between 1785 and 1832, probably after an apprenticeship in his father’s workshop.
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