EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO.
The pianoforte was directly evolved from the clavichord and the harpsichord. In 1711, Scipione Maffei gave a detailed account of the first four instruments, which were built by Bartolommeo Cristofori, named by him pianoforte, and exhibited in 1709.
Marius, in France, exhibited harpsichords, with hammer action, in 1716; and Schroter, in Germany, claimed to have invented the pianoforte between 1717 and 1721.
Marius at first was generally credited with the invention, for it was not until 1738, when Cristofori's instruments had become famous, that the Italian advanced his claim, and it was in 1763 that he brought forward the proof of his contention.
Pianos of that period were shaped like the modern grand, the first square piano being built by Freiderica, an organ builder of Saxony, in 1758. The first genuine upright was patented in England and the United States by John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman, in 1800.