Stradivarius Museum (Stradivari Museum) traces its history since 1893, the year when Cremona received a gift from Giovanni Battista Cheranev collection of patterns, designs and a variety of tools that belonged to a local violin-makers, including the famous Antonio Stradivari .  In 1895, the year a further donation to the museum made Pietro Grulli - he gave four wooden clip, which were also made by Stradivari .  But the most significant part of the museum's collection are artifacts from the collection of Ignazio Alessandro Kotsio Count Salabue .  He was born in 1755, the year and was the first who began to collect the legacy of the great violin makers .  Having acquired what remained of Stradivari's workshop, Alessandro Kotsio able to satisfy their interest, which he has always had for the production of violins, and soon became a major specialist in the field .  A collection of wooden patterns, paper sketches and various objects that were used in the manufacture of violins, violas, cellos and other instruments, in 1920 was sold to the last member of the family Kotsio, Marchioness Paola Dalla Valle del Pomar, violin makers from Bologna Giuseppe Fiorini 100 thousand lire .  Later this priceless collection of carefully studied by Simone Fernando Sacconi, who gathered information about each of the items in the collection .  Fiorini was defeated in his attempt to establish a school in Italy for the production of violins on the basis of the collection, and as a result, in 1930, gave all the assembly Cremona .  In the same year at the Palazzo Affaytati exhibition was inaugurated with a collection Salabue .  Then the museum moved to the Palazzo dell'Arte, but in 2001 he returned to the Palazzo Affaytati elegant building of the 18th century . 

Today, the museum Stradivarius divided into three sections. The first describes the production of violins and violas in the tradition of the classic Cremona School, the second presents the tools of Italian violin makers of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, and in the third exhibited that same collection Salabue-Fiorini 710 artifacts from workshop of Stradivari.