Italian stringed keyboard instruments and simple geometry:  Some new developments at the Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments

Grant O’Brien

 The polygonal virginal by Alexander Bertoloti, 1586

 Figure 1 - Front and plan view photographs of the 1586 Alexander Bertoloti virginal

in the Russell Collection, The University of Edinburgh.  Inv. no. V1-AB1586.1

          The maker Alexander Bertoloti is supposed to have lived and worked in Venice.  The 1586 virginal in the Russell Collection[2] is very similar in many of its physical aspects (see Figure 1 and the diagram shown in Figure 2) to those of Dominicus Pisaurensis, Franciscus Patavinus, Iosephus Salodiensis, Ioannes Celestini, Marco Jadra and Benedetto Floriani, all of whom lived and worked in Venice, and the names of all of whom appear in the Venetian archives[3].  Indeed an anonymous list of harpsichord and virginal builders written in 1741 in Rome[4] mentions a certain Bartolotti(sic) among the two Trasuntinos, Celestini, the two Florianis, Baffo, Donato Undeo and Francesco Padovano all of whom are said by the author of the list to have worked in Venice.  At first glance it is therefore not surprising that the Russell Collection virginal has many features in common with the instruments of these other Venetian makers.

Figure 2 - A schematic representation of the case mouldings, keywell scroll, key arcades, jackrail cross-section and left- and right-hand c² bridge sections of the 1586 Alexander Bertoloti virginal in the Russell Collection, University of Edinburgh.

          The name of Alexander Bertoloti does not, however, appear in the Venetian archives despite the fact that many modern authors have also assumed that he lived and worked there[5].  Stefano Toffolo, in his book on Venetian instrument makers[6], mentions instruments signed by Bertoloti, but he has confirmed in private correspondence to me that he has not been able to find any archival trace of Bertoloti in Venice.  I would like to show that the solution posed by this enigma lies in an analysis of the unit of measurement used to construct the instrument.

                     Without going here into the actual process of analysing the measurements, I present only the results. The measurements shown below in Figure 3 are those of the baseboard of the Bertoloti virginal without the case sides.  The Venetian piede had a length of 347.76mm with an oncia of length 28.98mm.  The baseboard measurements, the case height and other measurements of the keyplank, scalings, etc. of the Bertoloti virginal give strange irrational numbers when they are converted using the Venetian oncia.  However, it seems clear that the instrument was constructed using the Veronese piede of 342.915mm with an oncia of 28.576mm.  When expressed in units of the Veronese oncia the dimensions of the baseboard give simple straight-forward numbers typical of the measurements of many other virginals of this period.  Using this value for the oncia the case height of the Bertoloti virginal is  = 5.756 ≈ 5¾ once, the same value in once as that used by other Venetian makers, and the angle at the front left hand corner was constructed using a rectangle with sides of 3 once and 6 once, also the same as that used by a number of other Venetian makers.  The length of the notes f² and f³ used by Bertoloti to design his string scalings are almost exactly 9 and 4½ Veronese once, etc.

Figure 3 - Baseboard measurements without the case sides

of the 1586 Alexander Bertoloti virginal in the Russell Collection, Edinburgh.