Marchese Scipione Maffei

Biography

Marchese Scipione Maffei, a Florentine scholar, wrote a document in 1711 describing Bartolommeo Cristofori's exhibition of four pianofortes in 1709, together with a diagram of Cristofori's action principle. Maffei's account was originally published in the Giornale and was later translated and reproduced in Rimbault's 1860 history 'The Pianoforte,' providing key documentary support for Cristofori's claim to have invented the instrument.

Highlights

• Florentine scholar who in 1711 documented Cristofori's 1709 exhibition of four pianofortes
• His account, published in the Giornale, included a diagram of Cristofori's action principle

Source

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), p. 17.

Public domain.