The Cimbalo Cromatico and Other Italian Keyboard Instruments with Ninteen or More Division to the Octave (Surviving Specimens and Documentary Evidence)

Abstract

An earlier article (abstracted as RILM 9191) established that the cimbalo cromatico had 19 keys per octave. No such instrument survives, but two show traces of having been such (including a harpsichord by Franciscus Faber, 1631). Luython's clavicymbalum universale described by Michael Praetorius, and other documented instruments in Graz and in Ferrara, Rome, and elsewhere in Italy, are discussed. Harpsichords and organs with more than 19 keys per octave clearly related in design to the cimbalo cromatico include instruments made by Domenico da Pesaro, Vincenzo Colombo, Vido Trasuntino, and designed by Gioseffo Zarlino, Nicola Vicentino, Francisco de Salinas, Fabio Colonna, Scipione Stella, Francesco Palmieri, Francesco Nigetti, and Jacques Buus. Documentation includes writings of Ercole Bottrigari, Giovanni Battista Boni, and, most important, Martino Pesenti, in the introduction to his op. 15.