Home

Cav. Luigi Embergher
(1856 – 1943)

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the internet-site EMBERGHER.com, the oldest source with information about the mandolins, mandoliolas, mandolas, mandoloncellos, guitars, and mandolbassos etc. made by the celebrated Roman luthier Luigi Embergher (1856 – 1943) and his successors Domenico Cerrone (1891 – 1954) and his son Giannino Cerrone (1924 – 1993) and Pasquale Pecoraro (1907 – 1987). 

It is a great pleasure to introduce you to the art of Maestro Luigi Embergher, one of the most awarded Italian luthiers ever. This will be a site where I would like to share with you the knowledge about this subject that I gained over the past 25 years, and one that will be updated when interesting instruments or new facts have been found.

The revival of the mandolin has inspired scholars like Robert Janssens, James Tyler, Ugo Orlandi, Paul Sparks, Giovanni Antonioni, Stephen Morey and myself to investigate and write about the instrument and its repertoire from the Middle Ages up till today. These publications led to a great interest among mandolinists, both professional and amateur, all over the World to perform this music on original (or replicas of) period mandolins. It also started the search for the music, the best Italian mandolins and the players of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Because of the overwhelming amount of questions I am being asked in letters, by phone and via the internet, about which maker(s) should be looked after when good original instruments are required, I decided to reveal the facts that I have been able to collect about one of the most celebrated Italian luthiers of plucked instruments: Luigi Embergher. A reason more to do so is that this extremely gifted artist made his instruments in different models from low prized student- up to very expensive soloist- and artistic models. Interestingly he was one of the first to advertise them as such in his catalogues and who would stick to this during his entire career as a luthier.

The selection of information that is given here forms part of a much more substantial chapter about the Modern Roman mandolin in a book about the Mandolin and its History, which will be published in the future.

I have intended this website as being a tribute to Maestro Luigi Embergher and his unsurpassed instruments of the mandolin family. I therefore sincerely hope that the information will be of benefit to mandolinists, luthiers and all other interested mandolin enthusiasts.

With kind regards,

Alex Timmerman
Zwolle, Oktober 2019

Copyright issues and use/ownership of images: All information provided on- and all images used within this site, unless copyrighted by the original owner(s), are copyrighted by Alex Timmerman. Images on the remainder of the site include, at the end of their file name, the name of the person, author, or source from where the image was obtained. These sources may or may not be the copyright owners of the image, and are accurate only so far as I have been able to determine. If anyone believes an image belonging to him or her is mis-credited, or violates his or her use policy, please contact me for correction or removal.

Permission to use any images from this site must be granted by either the original owners or myself. Those images taken from books, web sites or other published sources without express permission are reproduced here for research purposes only, and are displayed at low resolution only.