Lucio Carbone

Milan, Italy

Lucio Carbone came to us the way the best introductions do: Lorenzo Micheli recommended him to us personally, speaking very highly of his guitars. Carbone was born in Milan in 1959 and built his first guitar in 1976, as a hobby alongside his physics studies. The workshop won. In the early 1980s he left physics for lutherie, beginning with steel string instruments in the American tradition before turning to the classical guitar in 1986, and for decades he ran a well known Milan shop alongside his workshop, restoring instruments of the 19th and 20th centuries and serving as the trusted luthier for several eminent brands. In 2018 he closed that chapter to devote himself exclusively to building.

Carbone builds in the Spanish tradition with the voices of Torres, García, and Hauser in his ear, and the Hauser sound above all, for what he calls the elegance of its voice and its dynamic equilibrium. He works with woods aged more than twenty years, finishes in French polish, and treats every instrument as unique. Alongside faithful Hauser and Enrique García models, he has become, in his own words, (in)famous for his Relic Torres guitars, instruments built, worn, and finished as though they have already lived a century of music. He lectures on lutherie across Europe, including on the relic art itself, and his output is deliberately small: a waiting list of nearly two years, with only two or three unspoken-for guitars a year kept aside for exhibitions and dealers.

Our first Carbone is one of those rare unspoken-for instruments: a Relic Torres that spent the summer of 2026 on the European exhibition circuit, where it was played by Edith Pageaud at Roma Expo Guitars 2026. At the expo it had only just been strung; Lucio is now completing the relic process, and the guitar ships to Austin soon, expected in Q4 2026. It will be the first relic Torres interpretation we have carried from any maker, and our expert team is glad to talk with players drawn to that very special voice.