Bartolomo Christofori

Biography

Bartolomo Christofori (also rendered Cristofori) served as musical-instrument maker to the Duke of Tuscany at the end of the seventeenth century, a position of comfortable patronage that let him pursue his studies and experiments in developing the pianoforte while also making spinets, harpsichords, and lutes for the Duke's court. Dolge credits him as the inventor of the pianoforte, achieved during Italy's cultural flowering alongside the revival of architecture, sculpture, painting, and literature. Because the Italian nobility of the period disdained commercializing artists' creations, and because Italy's trade ran chiefly toward the Orient where the instrument could not be sold, few pianofortes were built by Christofori and the invention was not widely exploited at the time. The King of Saxony nonetheless came into possession of one of his pianofortes at an early date, which Gottfried Silbermann subsequently copied, effectively foreclosing further sales of Christofori's or other Italian instruments north of the Alps.

Highlights

• Invented the pianoforte while in service to the Duke of Tuscany
• A pianoforte of his was acquired by the King of Saxony and later copied by Gottfried Silbermann

Source

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911), p. 167.

Public domain.