Piano Invented by Cristofori

May 8, 1708

In a Florentine workshop maintained by Ferdinando de Medici, Bartolomeo Cristofori published an inventory listing his latest device: a harpsichord that could play soft and loud. Its hammer action would slowly conquer Europe. He died almost unknown. His invention became the century's instrument. By the time Mozart sat at one in Vienna, the pianoforte had displaced the harpsichord from every serious salon on the continent.