Elena Dal Cortivo is a master luthier (a maker of stringed instruments such as violins or guitars), musician, and creator of roses for stringed instruments.
Parchment roses are decorative elements used to enhance harpsichords, clavichords, baroque guitars and other early musical instruments.
She enrolled in Milan’s Civica Scuola di Liuteria in 1980, and after graduation, obtained the qualification of ‘Operator and Conservator of Stringed Instruments’.
Dal Cortivo trained as a luthier in Milan, and began work in Vicenza, occasionally making decorative rosettes, intricately designed and made from goat parchment, for harpsichords and baroque guitars.
In 1991, she opened a workshop in Milan where she continued to make and restore musical instruments and to receive requests for rosettes.
Gradually, creating rosettes became her main occupation and today Dal Cortivo is one of the most highly regarded practitioners of this rarest of crafts.
The incredible and elaborate parchment roses that can be admired in her extensive catalogue are genuine masterpieces in miniature whose execution requires particular taste and skill: a rare and highly poetic craft of extraordinary virtuosity that very few are still able to practice with such delicate mastery.
More of Elena Dal Cortivo’s magnificent handiwork can be found at http://www.parchmentroses.com/ and https://www.maestrodartemestiere.it/en/libro-d-oro/2020/elena-dal-cortivo.
Humoring the Goddess 
Neither did I, but I love them.
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Yes! Thank you! I didn’t even know what a parchment rose was until I read about her work.
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Wow, they are amazing !!
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