Guarneri
The Guarneri (, , ), often referred to in the Latinized form Guarnerius, is the family name of a group of distinguished luthiers from Cremona in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries, whose standing is considered comparable to those of the Amati and Stradivari families. Family members. Two of Andrea's sons continued the father's traditions: Giuseppe Giovanni Battista was father to two further instrument makers: Other 20th-century 'del Gesù' players include Arthur Grumiaux, Jascha Heifetz, Leonid Kogan, Kyung Wha Chung, Michael Rabin, Joseph Silverstein, Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman, Charles Fleischman, Robert McDuffie, Itzhak Perlman, Midori Goto, Rachel Barton  Pine, Henryk Szeryng, Sarah Chang, Leila Josefowicz and the late Eugene Fodor. The Guarneri family's history is partially uncertain. Anthony J. Guarnieri writes, "Giuseppe del Gesù and Peter of Venice may have been cousins rather than brothers, and Peter of Venice may have been the son of Peter of Mantua." "Signor Giovanni de Piccolellis, in 1885, searched the archives at the church, San Donato, in Cremona for information on the Guarneri family. His findings, published 1886, in the manuscript entitled "LIUTAI ANTICHI e MODERNI", and now available online in PDF format on Google Books clearly shows that Joseph Guarneri  'del Gesù' was the son of Gian Battista Guarneri, who was in fact the younger brother of Andrea Guarneri." Guarneri violins. Some of the world's most famous violinists, such as Niccolò Paganini, Jascha Heifetz and Yehudi Menuhin have preferred Guarneris to Stradivaris. The average Stradivari is stronger in the 200 Hz and 250 Hz bands and above 1.6 kHz. Guarneri violins are also known by the extension of Giuseppe Guarneri's name, Del Gesù. Del Gesùs are on average stronger from 315 Hz up to 1.25 kHz. These differences are perceived as a more brilliant sound and stronger fundamentals  of the lowest notes of the Stradivari, versus a darker sound in the del Gesùs. A Guarneri violin is a center object in one of Andrea Camilleri's main Montalbano novels "La Voce del violino" ("The voice of the violin"). In the summer of 2010, the ex-Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesù, a violin built in 1741 by Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri, was offered for sale at auction with a starting bid of $18 million, the highest price ever sought for a musical instrument. The violin was later sold for an undisclosed sum and Anne Akiko Meyers was given lifetime use