The Milanese Rossi were famous spinet-makers, and have been accredited (La Nobility di Milano, 1595) with the recessing of the keyboard, which had previously entirely projected; by this recess ing a greater width was obtained for the sound-board. The spinets by Annibale Rosso at South Kensington, dated respectively 1555 and 1577, show this alteration, and may be compared with the older and purer form of one, dated 1568, by Marco Jadra (also known as Marco "dalle spinette," or "dai cembali"). The appar ent compass of the keyboard in Italy generally exceeded four octaves by a semitone, E to F; but we may regard the lowest natural key as usually C, and the lowest sharp key as usually D, in these instruments, according to "short measure." The rectangular spinet, or "virginal," early assumed in Italy the fashion of the large "cassoni" or wedding chests. The oldest we know of in this style, and dated, is the fine specimen be longing to M. Terme which fig ures in L'Art decoratif. Virginal is not an Italian name; the rec tangular instrument in Italy is "spinetta tavola." In England, from Henry VII. to Charles II., all quilled instruments (stro menti di penna), without distinc tion as to form, were known as virginals. It was a common name, equivalent to the contemporary Italian clavicordo and Flemish clavisingel. From the latter we arrive at the French clavecin the spinet being simply a "petit clavecin." Mersenne (op. cit., p. 158) gives three sizes for spinets —one 21 ft. wide, tuned to the octave of the "ton de Chapelle" (a half tone above the present English medium pitch), one of 31 ft. tuned to the fourth below, and one of 5 ft. tuned to the octave below the first, the last being therefore tuned in unison to the chapel pitch. The octave spinet, of trapeze form, was known in Italy as "ottavina" or "spinetta di serenata." It had a less compass of keys than the larger instrument, being apparently three and two-third octaves, E to C—which by the "short measure" would be four octaves, C to C. These little spinets were placed upon the larger ones in performance and used to heighten the brilliant effect. In the double rectangular clavisingel of the Neth erlands, in which there was a movable octave instrument, we recognize a similar intention. There is a fine spinet of this kind at Nuremberg. Praetorius illustrates the Italian spinet by a form known as the "spinetta traversa," an approach towards the harp sichord, the tuning pins being immediately over the keyboard. This transposed spinet, more powerful than the old trapeze one, became fashionable in England after the Restoration, when Haward, Keene, Slade, Player, Baudin, the Hitchcocks, Mahoon, Haxby, the Harrir family, and others made such "spinets" during a period for which we have dates from 1664 to 1784. Pepys bought his "Espinette" from Charles Haward for is, July 13, 1664. Thomas Hitchcock (for whom there are dates 1664 and '703 written on keys and jacks of spinets bearing Edward Blunt's name and having divided bass sharps) made a great advance in constructing spinets, giving them the wide compass of five octaves, from G to G, with very fine keyboards in which the sharps were inlaid with a slip of the ivory or ebony, as the case might be, of the naturals.
We have now to ask what was the difference between Scaliger's harpichordum and his clavicym bal. Galilei, the father of the astronomer of that name (Dia logo della musica antics e mo derns, Florence, 1581), says that the harpichord was so named from having resembled an "area giacente," a pr o s t r at e or "couched" harp, proving that the clavicymbal was at first the tra peze-shaped spinet ; and we should therefore differentiate harpichord and clavicymbal as derived from the harp and psalt ery respectively.
The Latin name "clavicim balum," having early been replaced by spinet and virginal, was in Italy and France bestowed upon the long harpichord, and was continued as clavicembalo and clavecin. Much later, after the restoration of the Stuarts, "harpichord" was accepted and naturalized in England as harpsichord, which we will define as the long instrument with quills, shaped like a modern grand piano. We can point out no long instrument of this kind so old as the Roman cembalo at South Kensington. The outer case is of finely tooled leather. It has a compass of nearly four octaves, E to D, and the natural keys are of boxwood.
The startling "piano e forte" of 1598, brought to light from the records of the house of D'Este by Count Valdrighi of Modena (see Van der Straeten, vi., 122), we are disposed to regard, not as an anticipation of Cristofori's subsequent invention of the pianoforte, but as an ordinary cembalo with power to shift by a stop, from two unisons (forte) to one string (piano), at that time a Flemish practice, and most likely brought to Italy by one of the Flemish musicians who founded the Italian school of composition.
About the year 1600, when ccompaniment was invented for monody, large cembalos were made for the orchestras to bring out the-bass part, the performer standing to play. Such an instru ment was called "archicembalo," a name also applied to a large cembalo, made by Vito Trasuntino, a Venetian, in 1606, intended by thirty-one keys in each of its four octaves, to restore the three genera of the ancient Greeks.
Double keyboards and stops in the long cembalo or harpsichord came into use in the Netherlands early in the 16th century. We find them imported into England. The following citations, quoted by Rimbault in his History of the Pianoforte, are from the privy purse expenses of King Henry VIII.
"153o (April). Item the vj daye paied to William Lewes for ii payer of virginalls in one coffer with iiii stoppes brought to Grenewiche iii. li. And for ii payer of virginalls in one coffer brought to the More other iii.
Now the second instrument may be explained ("virginals" mean ing any quilled instrument) as a double spinet, like that at Nurem berg by Martin van der Beest, the octave division being movable. But the first cannot be so explained ; the four stops can only belong to a harpsichord, and the two pair instrument to a double-manual. Again from the inventory after the king's death (see Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 1419) fol. "Two fair pair of new long Virginalls made harp-fashion of Cipres, with keys of ivory, having the King's Arms crowned and supported by his Grace's beastes within a garter gilt, standing over the keys." in an inventory of the furniture of Warwick Castle, 1584, "a faire paire of double virginalls," and in the Hengrave inventory, 1603, "one great payre of double virginalls." Hans Ruckers, the great clavisingel maker of Antwerp, lived too late to have invented the double keyboard and stops, evident adaptations from the organ, and the octave string was already in use when he began his work. Until the last harpsichord was made by Joseph Kirkman, in '798, scarcely an instrument of the kind was constructed, except in Italy, without the octaves. The harpsichord as known throughout the i8th century, with "piano" upper and "forte" lower keyboard, was the invention of Hans Ruckers's grandson, Jean Ruckers's nephew, Jan Couchet, about 1640. Before that time the double keyboards in Flemish harpsichords were merely a transposing expedient, to change the pitch a fourth, from plagal to authentic and vice versa, while using the same groups of keys.