A few days later he combines business with pleasure, for he notes:
"To buy a rest for my espinette at the ironmonger's by Holborn Conduit, where the fair pretty woman is, that I have lately observed there."
[Figure 85] shows a very beautiful spinet made by Domenico di Pesaro, in Italy, in 1661. The instrument can be taken from its outer case, is of cedar wood, has a projecting keyboard, and is decorated with ivory studs. The outer case is very handsome, decorated with gesso work, (which was so much copied by Robert Adam after his return from Italy) this work being gold on a pale-green ground. The decoration on the inside of the cover is a boating scene, the keys are of light wood, the sharps being black. The instrument, triangular in shape, rests on three richly carved and gilt legs, and is four feet eight inches long, by nineteen inches wide. It looks very tiny, even beside a "baby grand."
The beauty and enrichment of the cases in which these instruments were placed shows with what care and reverence they were regarded. Harpsichords varied much in having one, two, or occasionally three banks of keys, and being placed in upright cases, the covers of which opened like a bookcase, or in a horizontal case, as in the one shown in [Figure 86]. Each of the three banks of keys has a compass of five octaves, from F to F. The entire case is gilt Louis XV. style, decorated with elaborate carvings and with paintings of flowers and figures in medallions and borders. On the outside of the cover is the coat of arms of the Strozzi family. The name of the maker is engraved on an ivory plate above the keyboards, and reads—
Vicentius Sodi Florentius Fecit. Anno Domini 1779.
The length of the case is seven feet; it is three feet wide, and nearly ten inches deep.
The harpsichord held its own for fifty years after the invention of the pianoforte, for Bartolommeo Cristofori published his invention as early as 1711, although he did not perfect his piano till 1720. His action has the escapement, without which there can be no vibrating note, and the "check," which was an all-important step toward repeating notes. There are preserved at Potsdam, Germany, three pianos which belonged to Frederick the Great, and which were made by Silberman, who exactly copied the action as well as the structure of Cristofori's invention. In [Figure 87] is shown the first piano made by Cristofori. Above the front board is the following inscription:
Bartholomæus de Christophoris Patavinus Inventor
Facierat Florentiæ mdccxx
This instrument, as well as the two previously shown, belong to the collection of musical instruments given by Mrs. Crosby Brown to the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
