Gabriele Lodi
Gabriele Lodi is one of Italy's leading classical guitar makers and a widely recognized figure on the international lutherie scene. He continues the distinguished legacy of Liuteria Lodi, the workshop founded in the early 1970s by his father Maurizio and his uncle Leandro in the Modena region. Sons of a furniture maker and restorer, the two Lodi brothers grew up surrounded by wood and craftsmanship, learning their skills in their father's workshop after school. Leandro, the elder, displayed exceptional artistic ability and deepened it at the Venturi Art Institute, while Maurizio pursued five years of formal guitar studies under maestro Saldarelli at the Conservatory of Modena.
The brothers' early workshop drew inspiration from the great makers represented at the Conservatory, and their first guitars were modeled on the work of José Ramírez III, then at the height of his international fame. Growing up within this exceptional family environment, Gabriele absorbed the craft from an earliest age and, under the guidance of his uncle Leandro, mastered design, assembly, and the delicate art of restoration. By the age of twenty, he had officially made guitar making his profession and began to focus on his fascination with historical instruments — a fascination that has become one of his defining traits as a luthier.
Few makers worldwide can claim to have had as many historical Spanish guitars on their workbench as Gabriele Lodi. The direct acquisition and restoration of important guitars spanning the Romantic period to the modern era has given him a profound, hands-on understanding of the great Spanish school. He is especially known for his interpretations of Antonio de Torres — not literal copies, but personal syntheses of his favorite elements from various Torres instruments, blended with refinements that meet the needs of modern concert performers. His landmark 100th guitar, presented at the Roma Guitar Expo in 2021, was a stunning interpretation of the 1858 Torres built for the Seville International Expo, displaying both his reverence for tradition and his refined sense of proportion in decoration.
Today, working from his workshop in Carpi near Modena, Lodi has refined the traditional Lodi style — rooted in the Spanish school and inspired by masters such as Torres and Ramírez III — into a voice that is unmistakably his own. His guitars are celebrated for their warm, loose, harmonically rich, old-world tonal character, combined with the focus, separation, balance, and projection demanded by the modern stage. Every step of the process, from the hand-cut rosette to the French polish finish using vegetable resins, is carried out by hand. The result is an unmistakable hallmark of craftsmanship that places Gabriele Lodi among the most authoritative voices in contemporary Italian guitar making.
