Bartolomeo Cristofori and the invention of the piano
Bartolomeo Cristofori, the inventor of the piano was born 360 years ago. Wikicommons/Public Domain

Today is the 350th birthday of the Italian inventor of the piano. Indeed, the story of the piano begins in Padua, Italy in 1709, in the shop of a harpsichord maker named Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori, who was employed by Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, as the Keeper of the Instruments; he was an expert harpsichord maker, and was well acquainted with the body of knowledge on stringed keyboard 

The first exhibition was in Florence in 1709, when Cristofori’s new instrument was named gravicembalo col piano e forte (roughly “soft and loud keyboard instrument”). Only later on, it was shortened to fortepiano or pianoforte, and finally to piano. His earliest surviving instrument dates from 1720 and is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

 
Despite the improvements covered over the last 300 years, Cristofori’s instrument has been pretty much kept as the same of the modern piano of today.

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