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no difference between it and the virginal were it not for a peculiarity of keyboard compass, which emphatically refers itself to the Italian “spinetta,” a name unnoticed by Virdung or by his countryman Arnold Schlick, who, in the same year 1511, published his Spiegel der Orgelmacher (Organ-builders’ Mirror), and named the clavichordium and clavicimbalum as familiar instruments. In the first place, the keyboard, beginning apparently with B natural, instead of F, makes the clavicimbalum smaller than the virginal, the strings in this arrangement being shorter; in the next place it is almost certain that the Italian spinet compass, beginning apparently upon a semitone, is identical with a “short measure” or “short octave” organ compass, a very old keyboard arrangement, by which the lowest note, representing B, really sounded G and C sharp in like manner A. The origin of this may be deduced from the psaltery and many representations of the regal, and its object appears to have been to obtain dominant basses for cadences, harmonious closes having early been sought for as giving pleasure to the ear. Authority for this practice is to be found in Mersenne, who, in 1636, expressly describes it as occurring in his own spinet (espinette). He says the keyboards of the spinet and organ are the same.

Fig. 6.—Virdung’s Clavicimbalum (Spinet), 1511; reversed facsimile.

Now, in his Latin edition of the same work he renders espinette by clavicimbalum. We read (Harmonie Universelle, Paris, 1636, liv. 3, p. 107—“Its longest string [his spinet’s] is little more than a foot in length between the two bridges. It has only thirty-one keys [marches] in its keyboard, and as many strings over its sound-board [he now refers to the illustration], so that there are five keys hidden on account of the perspective—that is to say, three diatonic and two chromatic [feintes, same as the Latin ficti], of which the first is cut into two [a divided sharp forming two keys]; but these sharps serve to go down to the third and fourth below the first step, C sol [tenor clef C], in order to go as far as the third octave, for the eighteen principal steps make but an eighteenth, that is to say, a fourth more than two octaves.” The note we call F, he, on his engraving, letters as C, indicating the pitch of a spinet of the second size, which the one described is not. The third and fourth, reached by his divided sharp, are consequently the lower A and G; or, to complete, as he says, the third octave, the lowest note might be F, but for that he would want the diatonic semitone B, which his spinet, according to his description, did not possess.^[1] Mersenne’s statement sufficiently proves, first, the use in spinets as well as in organs of what we now call “short measure,” and, secondly, the object of divided sharps at the lower end of the keyboard to gain lower notes. He speaks of one string only to each note; unlike the double and triple strung clavichord, those instruments, clavicimbalum, spinet, or virginal, derived from the psaltery, could only present one string to the mechanical plectrum which twanged it. As regards the kind of plectra
Fig. 7.—Spinet “Jack.” earliest used we have no evidence. The little crow-quill points project from centred tongues in uprights of wood known as “jacks” (fig. 7), which also carry the dampers, and rising by the depression of the keys in front, the quills set the strings vibrating as they pluck them in passing, springs at first of steel, later of bristle, giving energy to the twang and governing their return J. C. Scaliger in Poetices libri septem (1561, p. 51. c. 1.) states that the Clavicimbalum and Harpichordum of his boyhood are now called Spinets on account of those quill points (ab illis mucronibus), and attributes the introduction of the name “spinetta” to them (from spina, a thorn). We will leave harpichordum for the present, but the early identity Spinet. of clavicimbalum and spinetta is certainly proved. Scaliger’s etymology remained unquestioned until Signor Ponsicchi of Florence discovered another derivation. He found in a rare book entitled Conclusione nel suono dell’ organo, di D. Adriano Banchieri (Bologna, 1608), the following passage, which translated reads: “Spinetta was thus named from the inventor of that oblong form, who was one Maestro Giovanni Spinetti, a Venetian; and I have seen one of those instruments, in the possession of Francesco Stivori, organist of the magnificent community of Montagnana, within which was this inscription—Joannes Spinetvs Venetvs fecit, A.D. 1503.” Scaliger’s and Banchieri’s statements may be combined, as there is no discrepancy of dates, or we may rely upon whichever seems to us to have the greater authority, always bearing in mind that neither invalidates the other. The introduction of crow-quill points, and adaptation to an oblong case of an instrument previously in a trapeze form, are synchronous; but we must accept 1503 as a late date for one of Spinetti’s instruments, seeing that the altered form had already become common, as shown by Virdung, in another country as early as 1511. After this date there are frequent references to spinets in public records and other documents, and we have fortunately the instruments themselves to put in evidence, preserved in public museums and in private collections. A spinet dated 1490 was shown at Bologna in 1888; another old spinet in the Conservatoire, Paris, is a pentagonal instrument made by Francesco di Portalupis at Verona, 1523. The Milanese Rossi were famous spinet-makers, and have been accredited (La Nobilità di Milano, 1595) with an improvement in the form which we believe was the recessing of the keyboard, a feature which had previously entirely projected; by the recessing a greater width was obtained for the sound-board. The spinets by Annibale Rosso at South Kensington, dated respectively 1555 (fig. 8) 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”). Besides the pentagonal spinet, there was an heptagonal variety; they had neither covers nor stands, and were often withdrawn from decorated cases when required for performance. In other instances, as in the 1577 Rosso spinet, the case of the instrument itself was richly adorned. The apparent 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.”

Fig. 8.—Milanese Spinetta, by Annibale Rosso, 1555; South Kensington Museum.

The rectangular spinet, Virdung’s “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 belonging to M. Terme which figures in L’Art decoratif (fig. 9). Virginal is not an Italian name; Clavecin.