Giovanni Battista Maldura and the invention of the roman mandolin

Giovanni Battista Maldura (1859–1905), a renowned musician and tireless entertainer of Rome’s musical life in the second half of the 19th century, was also an undisputed innovator of a new concept of mandolin making, an instrument of which he was recognised as a great virtuoso. The need to restore the legitimate role of the figure of Maldura arises at a time when the mandolin is regaining, after a few decades of oblivion, its rightful place in the musical and cultural history of Italy, finally freeing itself from the stigma of the second half of the 20th century that bound it predominantly, if not sometimes exclusively, to a mostly popular soundscape. This book – written in two voices – brings together Maldura’s two souls: that of a brilliant teacher and musician, and that of a luthier, two souls that were never too far apart.