MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS— THE PIANO-FORTE. 477 



Fig. 5. — Harpsichord. 



The ijiano-forte was iuvented by Bartolommeo Cristofori, a 

 harpsichord-maker of Padua, Italy, who exhibited four iustru- 

 meuts in 1709. The honor was formerly claimed for Marius, a 

 French maker, who produced a piano in 1710 ; while German 



writers maintained that Schroeter, of Dresden, 



was the initiator of the instrument. The earli- 

 est date ascribed to the latter's achievement, 

 however, is 1711. During the present century, 

 however, an Italian document was discovered, 

 written by Marchese Scipione Maffei, a Floren- 

 tine scholar, in 1711, which testifies that Bar- 

 tolommeo Cristofori, of that city, exhibited 

 four pianos in 1709, which statement was origi- 

 nally published in the Giornale in that year, 

 accompanied by a diagram of Cristofori's ac- 

 tion principle, employing hammers, which con- 

 stituted the chief difference betwen the harp- 

 sichord and the piano. 



In Maffei's writings Cristofori's name is 

 given as " Cristofali," but this is proved to be 

 an error, because inscriptions upon existing piano-fortes give the 

 name as " Cristofori." 



Father Wood, an English monk, living at Rome, is also said 

 to have made a piano-forte similar to Cristofori's in 1711, which 

 he exhibited in England, where it attracted much notice. 



Cristofori did not remain idle after 

 introducing his first instrument. He 

 became prominently known as a maker, 

 but died in 1731, comparatively poor. 

 Two piano-fortes by Cristofori, at pres- 

 ent in Florence, dated 1720 and 1726, 

 show that he anticipated the princi- 

 ples of an improved action, and many 

 other points of equal importance in the 

 structure and acoustics of the instru- 

 ment. One of these is illustrated in 

 Fig. 0. All authorities admit that he 

 was a great figure and a genius of no 

 common order. 



England, backward in the produc- 

 tion of musical creators or adjuncts 

 to the art in the past, contributed nothing of consequence to 

 supplant the harpsichord, which instrument was largely im- 

 ported, until the middle of the last century, when Burckhardt 

 Tschudi, a Swiss, settled in London. Tschudi subsequently en- 

 gaged in the manufacture of piano-fortes, and incidentally founded 



Fig. 6. — Piano by Cristofori, a. d. 

 1726. Kraus Mnsenm, Florence. 



