Bartolomeo Cristofori and the Invention of the Piano

Abstract

This is the first comprehensive study of the life and work of Bartolomeo Cristofori, the Paduan-born harpsichord maker and contemporary of Antonio Stradivari, who is credited with having invented the pianoforte around the year 1700 while working in the Medici court in Florence. Through thorough analysis of documents preserved in the State Archive of Florence, Pollens has reconstructed, in unprecedented technical detail, Cristofori's working life between his arrival in Florence in 1688 and his death in 1732. This book will be of interest to pianists, historians of the piano, musicologists, museum curators and conservators, as well as keyboard instrument makers, restorers, and tuners.

A History of Stringed Keyboard Instruments

“…55 The terms arpicembalo (also spelled arpicimbalo) and gravecembalo (also spelled gravecimbalo) were both used in descriptions of Bartolomeo Cristofori's newly invented piano. 56 His 1720 piano originally had a bass extension of F, G, A, though his piano identified as an arpicimbalo inventoried in 1700, as well as his two other extant pianos dated 1722 and 1726, had more conventional compasses of C-c 3 . 57 Scipione Maffei, writing about the three pianos Cristofori had constructed as of 1711 (without indicating their keyboard range or ranges) referred to them variously as gravecembalo (1711) and gravicembalo (1719).…”

A Brief History of Piano Action Mechanisms

“…known as Scipione Maffei), wrote in occasion of his visit to Florence in 1709 (Montanari, 1991). Some researchers (Pollens, 2017) explain this choice with Cristofori's growing fame as instrument maker as well as his possible work on the fortepiano prior to moving to Florence. Prince Ferdinando was an accomplished musician, as well as an enthusiast of horology and other complex mechanical devices, and these factors might have led him to support Cristofori's research.…”

“…In Florence, Bartolomeo Cristofori worked in his workshop in the Uffizi's Galleria deiLavori (Pollens, 2017), where he built different kinds of keyboard instruments. An inventory of Prince Ferdinando's musical instruments in 1700 lists seven keyboard instruments by Cristofori: two spinets, a spinettone, three harpsichords (one upright) and "un Arpicimbalo di Bartolomeo Cristofori, di nuovainventione, che fa il piano e il forte, a due registriprincipaliunisoni" (an Arpicimbalo newly invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori, which plays piano and forte, with two main unison stops), which was probably the first fortepiano that he made (Montanari, 1991).…”