Cristofori Builds a Keyboard That Plays Soft and Loud

In May 1688, Bartolomeo Cristofori moved from Padua to Florence to enter the service of Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Ferdinando was an avid patron of music who maintained an extensive collection of musical instruments and mechanical devices. At the age of thirty-three, Cristofori accepted a monthly salary of twelve scudi to maintain, tune, and transport court instruments, as well as restore older harpsichords. Housed initially near the Grand Duke's workshops at the Uffizi, he eventually secured his own workspace, employing assistants while experimenting with new keyboard designs for the Medici court.

During his first decade in Florence, Cristofori designed innovative variations of existing stringed keyboards. A Medici court inventory compiled in 1700 documents two of his earlier inventions: the spinettone, a multi-choired spinet built to deliver greater volume in crowded theater orchestra pits, and an oval spinet dating to 1690 that placed its longest strings in the middle of the case. While these instruments expanded on the plucked strings of the traditional harpsichord family, they remained bound by the fundamental limitation of plucked mechanisms, which could not readily alter their volume in direct response to the player's touch.