Top: Cedar/Double Top
Back and sides: Rosewood
Scale: 650mm
Origin: Italy
Price: $9,950

You may recall from the first two Serracini guitars that sold so quickly last year that I ‘discovered’ Davide when the Italian government invited me to attend ‘Roma Expo Guitar 2024’. There were 30 very fine luthiers there, and at one point, Gabrielle, one of the expo hosts, played the same passage on each luthiers guitar while we all sat in the audience to listen. I listened with my eyes closed to seeing the builder and/or the guitar would not influence my decision. Only when I heard something that moved me did I open my eyes to discover who the builder was. This is what happened with Davide. I heard a beautiful expressive voice, very musical, and I opened my eyes to find Davide standing watching Gabrielle play. All 30 builders were very talented, but on this day, Davide’s guitar was the only one to cause me to open my eyes to look. Later we went to a private room where a fine player played his guitars while I listened. I knew I had found a builder that I wanted to share and invited Davide to become a featured luthier with Classic Guitars International.
In the short video I shot in Rome posted on this page, Davide explains his concept for his double tops. Most double tops have a thin ‘core’ material making them technically ‘composite’ tops. Davide’s are ’true’ double tops with just two pieces of wood. He uses a special machine to ‘mill’ channels in one of the tops to create the effect of a core but in actuality the entire system is all wood. You can view the pattern in the video.He also uses a standard fingerboard, not a raised fingerboard, which he feels adds ’sweetness’ to the character, and in fact this was one of the attributes I noted when I heard the guitar.

This guitar has the unmistakable beauty of classic Italian flair and exquisite refined taste, just a lovely guitar built with superb craftsmanship. The top is gloss lacquer and the back and sides are mat finished giving the Rosewood a lovely natural beauty.

The voice, well, it is the voice that made me open my eyes to see when played beside 30 other excellent guitars. It has the power and projection expected of the best double tops and is also remarkably even and very well balanced. The Cedar double top gives it a lovely warmth and of course my favorite aspect of Davide’s guitars, an inherent ’sweetness’ to balance the power.

After playing and hearing more double tops these past 30 years than I would guess anybody in the world, I have become very discriminating. I can say without reservation that I have not found a double top as good as this without spending double the price of this one. That is saying a lot.