Bartolomeo Cristofori: The Piano Innovator | Scientist Biography

During the remaining years of the 17th century, Cristofori invented two keyboard instruments before he began his work on the piano. These instruments are documented in an inventory, dated 1700, of the many instruments kept by Prince Ferdinando. Stewart Pollens conjectures that this inventory was prepared by a court musician named Giovanni Fuga, who may have referred to it as his own in a 1716 letter. The spinettone, Italian for "big spinet", was a large, multi-choired spinet , with disposition 1 x 8&1 x 4&most spinets have the simple disposition 1 x 8&This invention may have been meant to fit into a crowded orchestra pit for theatrical performances, while having the louder sound of a multi-choired instrument. The other invention was the highly original oval spinet, a kind of virginal with the longest strings in the middle of the case. Cristofori also built instruments of existing types, documented in the same 1700 inventory: a clavicytherium , and two harpsichords of the standard Italian 2 x 8&disposition; one of them has an unusual case made of ebony. f014