2025 Valerio Licari "Lesna - Special Edition" SP/ZR

This is a fantastic guitar from Valerio Licari, now living and working in Turin, Italy. Although thoroughly "Spanish" in its build, the aesthetic details on this guitar are drawn from Valerio's Italian roots. This new "special edition" model, which he calls "Lesna" has the same body shape and detailing that is found in his "Albayzín" model, but with a new, modified 6-fan bracing system internally. Our immediate response when tuning the guitar up and playing it upon arrival was that it does not feel like a "new" spruce. It's very loose and responsive - the sound literally jumps out of it with great ease, and it has a great blend of overtones & clarity. It's an extremely fun and satisfying guitar to play - very hard to put down!

Like some of his previous builds, his choice of detailing for this guitar is inspired by the famous "Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore" in Florence (see photos in gallery) which has particulary influenced the decorative motifs found in the rosette and tie-block (what Valerio calls his "Florentine design" which uses maple, sycamore and rosewood), giving the guitar a very satisfying "architectural" look. Materials used are Italian spruce for the soundboard (aged 20 years) matched with a set of AAA-quality ziricote for the back and sides (the 12-hole bridge is also ziricote). Neck is of Honduran cedar (with internal carbon fiber reinforcement) and it has an ebony fingerboard with 20 frets and compound radius. Tuning machines are by Alessi - his "Hauser" style with ebony knobs. The guitar is finely French polished. Overall, this is simply a stunning instrument. His instruments have been played most-notably by Pat Metheny and Charlie Burchill, to name a couple of well-known guitarists. We are very pleased to be representing this fine maker as his exclusive US dealer.

Photos of this guitar taken just after completion