Zanetto Micheli (c. 1489 – after 1560) was the first representative of the oldest known family of string instrument makers from the famous Renaissance Brescian school of strings and violin making, from which many very clear archive documents but (more important) some perhaps 20 original instruments (violins, violas, viols, double basses) seems to survive.
The oldest record of Micheli is in the 1527 Custodie notturne (Night Guards) with the designation "Ioannettus de li violettis", but without the being described as a "sonator" (player) of that instrument as is in other instances of the documents.
In 1533, he was quoted by Giovanni Maria Lanfranco in his musical and organological treatise Scintille di Musica edited in Brescia in 1533.
In 1537 a notarial act is written that Zanetto has to make a consort 5 viols with alla the accessories like the bows and a good varnishing.
And more, in the archive documents Zanetto is called "master of violins" like all the other Brescian makers starting surely from 1558.