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

 

Grant O’Brien

  

The rectangular virginal with an enharmonic keyboard attributed to Francesco Poggio, Florence, c.1600

Enharmonic virginal attributed to Francesco Poggio, Florence

          John Koster, on the basis of the similarity of this virginal to a similar unsigned instrument in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts[7] was the first to suggest to me that this instrument might be by Poggio.  Subsequent examination by me of a number of signed instruments by Poggio has done little but confirm John Koster’s suspicion.  The mouldings, the shape of the keywell scrolls, and the construction style and materials are all typical of the other signed and attributed instruments built in Florence by Francesco Poggio in the period from 1586 to 1620.  Although Poggio is almost unknown in the common literature as a maker of Italian virginals, there is a large number of polygonal and rectangular instrument by, or attributed to, him of both integral and separate inner-outer case construction.

          The jackrail of the Russell Collection virginal has the signature “Agostinus Federigus Fecit in Pisis anno Domini 1766”.  This signature is written in pen and ink on the non-original jackrail, which clearly has nothing to do with the instrument.  Indeed this appears to be the instrument listed in Franciolini’s Catalogue 6, series A, number 26[8], so that the signature on the jackrail can be disregarded completely.

          Little is known of the life of Francesco Poggio.  Some of his instruments are signed in the form “francesco poggio venetus’ indicating that he must have originated in Venice and then, unlike so many of his contemporaries in Venice who came from outwith La Serenissima Città, Poggio transferred his activity to Florence.  His date of birth is not known, but the Guild records in Florence, where he resided in the via dei Servi, indicate that he died without heirs in 1634.  Also from these records it is known that his father’s name was Piero  His signed instruments are dated between 1586 and 1620, so that a date of birth around 1560, or perhaps somewhat earlier, is possible.

          The Russell Collection virginal by Poggio is rectangular and so my usual method of getting an initial estimate of the length of the unit of measurement from the geometry of the corner angles does not work.  A number of the other instruments by Poggio are, however, polygonal, and from these it is clear that Poggio was using a unit of length close to 27.427mm.  This compares with the length of the soldo[9] in Florence which was given a value of 27.341mm by both Diderot (1751) and Krünitz (1788)[10], a value of 27.408mm by Larousse[11] and the value of 27.53mm by both Colonel Cotty (1819) and von Vega (1803) [12].  The similarity of the value of the soldo found for the other virginals by Poggio to the values given in the historical sources of metrology, confirms that they must indeed have been made in Florence using the Florentine braccio and soldo.

          Here I give a table of only some of the most important measurements of the Russell Collection instrument:

 

                                                                                       Length                Length                     Length of

                                       Part measured                         in mm                in soldi                       soldo

                                   Length of baseboard                     1549                     56½                           27.42

                                    Width of baseboard                       739                      27                             27.37

                                             Height of case                       219                       8                             27.38

                                 Length of the f3 string                       123                                                 27.33

                                 Length of the f2 string                       254                                                 27.47

                                                                          Totals      2884                  105¼         Average:   27.401

 

              This compares with the value of the soldo found for some of the other instruments of Poggio given above, and is yet another confirmation both that Poggio made the instrument and that the instrument was indeed made in Florence.


Footnotes: 

[7] See John Koster, Keyboard Musical Instruments in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1994) Catalogue Nº 17.1791, p. @

[8] See Edwin M. Ripin, ‘The instrument catalogues of Leopoldo Franciolini’, Music Indexes and Bibliographies, Vol. 9 (New Jersey, 1974) p.69:

Spinetta a Tavolino, pitturata, rappresentante animali ed altro con Stemma:  Leone rampante con croce fondo rosso scuro, con tasti dei legno bosolo e neri e rosetta gotica.  Firmata:  Agostinus Federigus Fecit in Pisis.  Anno Domini 1786.  L. m. 1,48. L. m. 0,53.”

[9] See: Angelo Martini,, Manuale di metrologia, (E. Loescher, Turin, 1883; reprint Editrice Edizioni Romane d’Arte, Rome, 1976) 206.  Martini is one of the few authors to give the length of the braccio and soldo before the standard of length in Florence was re-defined by legislation passed on 2 July, 1782.  The system of measurement in Florence and in much of Tuscany was rather complicated.  In this period 1 braccio = 2 palmi = 20 soldi = 12 crazie = 60 quattrini = 240 denari, so 1 palmo = 6 crazie = 10 soldi = 30 quattrini = 120 denari, and 1 soldo = 3 quattrini = 12 denari and 1 crazia = 1soldi = 5 quattrini = 20 denari and 1 quattrino = 4 denari.

[10] Denis Diderot and, Jean Henri le Rond d’Alembert, ‘Pied’, Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonnée des arts, sciences et métiers (Paris, 1751-65) 562-563 and Johann Georg Krünitz, Öconomische Encykopädie oder allgemeines System der Staats-, Stadt-, und Landwirtschaft, in alphabetischer Ordnung, 15 (Joseph Georg Traßler, Brünn, 1788) p. 519-22 both give lengths as 1440-th parts of the Paris pouce.  The length of the Florentine braccio and soldo were calculated by me using the pouce given by Colonel Cotty, Aide-Mémoire (p. 896 - see footnote 12).  My thanks to John Koster for pointing out the Krünitz source to me.  Krünitz seems clearly to base his values on the previous work of Diderot, who uses the same system of 1440-th parts of the French pouce, and gives exactly the same values as Diderot.

[11] See: Pierre Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire, (Paris, 1874) who gives a braccio with 20 soldi of length 548.17mm.

[12] Both Colonel Cotty, Aide-Mémoire a l’usage des officiers d’artillerie de France, 2 (Paris, 1819) 896-7, and Georg von Vega, Natürliches Mäß-, Gewicht- und Münzsystem, (Vienna, 1803) give the same length (550.6371mm) for the braccio da terra divided into 20 once.

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