It occupies
three floors of the 1903 Palazzina Samoggia, former Caserma Principe di
Piemonte (Barracks Prince of Piedmont) and former home of the Grenadiers of
Sardinia
It is the
most important European museum of musical instruments for wealth and prestige
of the preserved pieces and one of the most important in the world
The museum
opened in 1974
Begun from
the collection of tenor Evan Gorga (1865/1957),
the first interpreter of Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème, purchased in 1949 by
the Italian State
The
museum's pieces are about 3,000 of which about 840 exhibited in EIGHTEEN ROOMS,
coming from different parts of the world, ranging from the Far East to the
archaeological sites in southern Etruria, and spread over a very wide time
span, from the late Hellenistic period to the twentieth century
Among the
most important pieces there is a 1722 “Piano”, one of the first in the world built by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655/1732) from Padua who
invented the instrument in the years 1698/1700 under the name “Gravicembalo
with piano and forte” later called “Fortepiano”
It was the
first to use hammers in the mechanism of the harpsichord, though at the time
the invention was not an instant success
The piano by
Cristofori exhibited here is one of only three built by him still extant. The
other two are in Leipzig and in New York
“The
workmanship and inventiveness displayed by the instruments of Cristofori are of
the highest order and his genius has probably never been surpassed by any other
keyboard maker of the historical period ... I place Cristofori shoulder to
shoulder with Antonio Stradivarius” (Grant O'Brien)
AMONG THE
OTHER PIECES OF THE MUSEUM:
Group of
sixteenth-century bent “Cornamuti” by Weier
Some
instruments that used to be owned and played by Benedetto Marcello
A trumpet dating back to 1461
The famous “Barberini Harp” represented in the painting “Venus plays the
harp (Music)” by Giovanni Lanfranco at Palazzo Barberini
The fact
that a museum so rich and important is virtually unknown in Rome is indicative
of the prostration of Italy's cultural life today
The country
where the piano, the violin, opera and musical notation itself were invented is
now sadly at the mercy of ignorance spread by television
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