Stefano, Giuseppe Scarampella's younger brother, was born in Brescia in 1843 and began to take an interest in musical instruments following in the footsteps of his father Paolo, who made and repaired them at an amateur level. After Giuseppe returned from his apprenticeship with Nicolò Bianchi in Paris in 1866, Stefano was trained under his guidance, even if he was probably not able to start practicing violin making professionally until after having settled in Mantua for some years and being already over forty years of age. The physical distance from his brother, who had instead moved to Florence, meant that his style developed autonomously and completely spontaneously in a quiet career and in many ways closer to the styles of nineteenth-century lutherie than that of the early twentieth century.
Stefano Scarampella's initial instruments were however built on a model that Giuseppe had derived from del Gesù; in this phase the younger brother tried to imitate his refined purling extensions with exaggerated whalebone "bee-stings" at the corners. In homage to Mantua, Scarampella soon also introduced a model derived from Tommaso Balestrieri. Sometimes a third inspiration also seems to come from Giuseppe Dall'Aglio, both in some violins but more specifically in his violas; an influence of Balestrieri is finally identified in his cellos. The style of the scrolls is always personal, with a low termination of the spiral; the front of the volute is muscular and the back has a pear shape which ends in two characteristic rounded lobes. The varnish initially tends to be amber in color, then becomes redder and softer at the turn of the century, and finally orange and of hard consistency during the 1920s.
