A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cristofori, Bartolommeo
CRISTOFORI, Bartolommeo di Francesco—written Cristofali by Maffei—a harpsichord-maker of Padua, and subsequently of Florence, and the inventor of the pianoforte. Other claims to this discovery have great interest and will be noticed elsewhere (see Pianoforte and Schröter), but the priority and importance of Cristofori's invention have been so searchingly investigated and clearly proved by the late Cavaliere Leto Puliti,[1] that the Italian origin of the instrument, which its name would indicate, can be no longer disputed.
Cristofori was born in 1651 [App. p.601 "probably May 4, 1655 (the date given by Paloschi)"] (Fétis and Pietrucci in their respective memoirs erroneously state 1683). It may be surmised that he was the best harpsichord-maker in Florence [App. p.601 "Padua"], inasmuch as Prince Ferdinand, son of the Grand Duke Cosmo III, a skilled harpsichord player, who visited Padua in 1687, induced him then or very soon after to transfer himself from that city to Florence. We have evidence that in 1693 Cristofori wrote from Florence to engage a singer—the only time he appears in the Prince's voluminous correspondence. In 1709 Maffei visited Florence to seek the patronage of Prince Ferdinand for his 'Giornale dei Letterati d' Italia' and in vol. v. of that work, published in 1711, Maffei states that Cristofori had made four 'gravicembali col piano e forte,' three distinctly specified as of the large or usual harpsichord form, the fourth differing in construction, and most likely in the clavichord or spinet form: there was among the Prince's musical instruments a 'cimbalo in forma quadra,' an Italian spinet which when altered to a pianoforte would be termed a square. In 1719, in his 'Rime e Prose,' published at Venice, Maffei reproduced his description of Cristofori's invention without reference to the previous publication. As these pianofortes were in existence in 1711, it is just possible that Handel may have tried them, since he was called to Florence in 1708 by Prince Ferdinand to compose the music for a melodrama, remained there a year and brought out his first opera 'Rodrigo.'
The Prince died in 1713, and Cristofori continuing in the service of the Grand Duke, in 1716 received the charge of the eighty-four musical instruments left by the Prince. Of these nearly half were harpsichords and spinets—seven bearing the name of Cristofori himself. It is curious however that not one of them is described as 'col piano e forte' and also interesting that in the receipt to this inventory we have Cristofori's own handwriting as authority for the spelling now adopted of his name.
The search for Cristofori's workshop proving unsuccessful, Puliti infers that the Prince had given him a room in the Uffizi, probably near the old theatre, in the vicinity of the foundry and workshops of the cabinet-makers. He imagines the Prince suggesting the idea of the pianoforte and taking great interest in the gradual embodiment of the idea thus carried out under his own eyes.
Maffei gives an engraving of Cristofori's action or hammer mechanism of 1711. It shows the key with intermediate lever, and the hopper, the thrust of which against a notch in the butt of the hammer jerks the latter upwards to the string. The instant return of the hopper to its perpendicular position is secured by a spring; thus the escapement or controlled rebound of the hammer is without doubt the invention of Cristofori. The fall of the intermediate lever governs an under-damper, but there is no check to graduate the fall of the hammer in relation to the force exercised to raise it. For this however we have only to wait a very few years. There is in the possession of the Signora Ernesta Mocenni Martelli in Florence a grand pianoforte made by Cristofori in 1720, the namepiece 'Bartholomaeus de Christoforis Patavinus Inventor faciebat Florentiæ mdccxx.' being the guarantee for its origin and age. Puliti had two exact drawings made of the action, one with the key at rest and the other when pressed down, and has described each detail with the greatest care. The hammer is heavier than that represented in 1711, the intermediate lever is differently poised and the damper raised by the key when in movement now acts above instead of under the strings. Finally there is the check completing the machine.
What doubts have not found their solution by the discovery of this interesting instrument, which was exhibited at the Cristofori Festival at Florence in May 1876? The story of it begins about sixty years since when Signor Fabio Mocenni, the father of the present owner, obtained it of a pianoforte-tuner at Siena in exchange for wine. Its anterior history is not known, but Puliti offers suggestive information in the fact of Violante Beatrice di Baviera—the widow of Cristofori's master and protector Prince Ferdinand—having lived at Siena at different times, particularly when her nephew was studying at the Sienese University in 1721. [App. p.601 adds "that a second instrument by Cristofori was exhibited at the Festival of 1876, and at the Trocadéro, Paris, 1878, by the Signori Krauss of Florence. The date of it is 1726; the action is the same as in that belonging to the Signora Martelli, but with the advantage of possessing the original light hammers. The touch is good and very facile."]
But if it were only a harpsichord turned by the addition of hammers to a pianoforte? The careful examination of Puliti is the authority that all its parts were constructed at one time, and the word 'Inventor' appended to Cristofori's name would not have been applied to a simple harpsichord or spinet. It is a bichord instrument, compass from D to F, exceeding four octaves.
Cristofori died in 1731 [App. p.601 "Jan. 27"] at the advanced age of eighty. His reputation had already extended into Germany, for Mattheson had published the translation by König of Maffei's article in the 2nd volume of his 'Critica Musica' (Hamburg 1722–25), and Walther, in his 'Musikalisches Lexicon' (Leipsic 1732), article 'Pianoforte,' treating of the invention, attributes it exclusively to Cristofori.
On May 7, 1876, a stone was placed in the cloisters of Santa Croce at Florence bearing the following inscription—
A Bartolomeo Cristofori
Cembalaro da Padova
che
in Firenze nel MDCCXI
inventò
il Clavicembalo col Piano e Forte
il Comitativo Fiorentino
Coadiuvanti Italiani e Stranieri
pose questa Memoria.
- ↑ Cenni Storiél della vita del serenissimo Ferdinando dei Medici, etc. Esiratto dagli Atti dell' Accademia del It. Istituto Musciale di Firenze 1874