A look inside the Large Italian Harpsichord
The internal structure of the large Italian is a duplicate the structure I found in Colin Tilney's old Italian harpsichord. What you see at right is the inside part of the case; the walls are over an inch thick. Note the "flying buttress" braces. The external case is glues and nailed to the internal case. This system of case structure is without doubt directly related to the first forte pianos of Bartolomeo Cristofori, the piano's inventor.
To the left is a composite of two actual photographs taken inside the original instrument, showing the brace and wall structure. The left image is looking toward the tail along the bentside; in the right image the camera has been turned 180 degrees to look along the bentside towards the belly rail. Note the recycled wood used for a buttress brace in the right image. Note also the cut nails sticking through the case wall: these hold the exterior case (along with glue) to the interior case. Analysis of the photographs taken of the interior and detailed comparison with existing instruments firmly establish that this harpsichord can be attributed to Bartolomeo Cristofori.
At right is the underside of the soundboard. The extensive ribbing holds the soundboard extremely flat and adds greatly to the tuning stability of the harpsichord. The original instrument's soundboard is made of flat-sawn cypress, quite thick in section. My instrument's soundboard is cedar of Lebanon. Even with a cedar of Lebanon soundboard my copy sounds nearly identical to the original.
Here is the original instrument. The decoration is mid-to-late 18th century. The painting on the inside of the lid is based on a painting by by Giandomenico Tiepolo,Minuetto con Pantalone e Colombina, circa 1756, now in the Cambo Collection in Barcelona. The paintings on the outside surfaces are vedute renderings of Venice, and flowers. The cabriole stand also has flowers. The exterior paintings and decoration are attributed to a member of the Guardi studio in Venice, most probably Nicolo Guardi, who was an uncle of Giandomenico Tiepolo. Most of the original examples of these paintings can be traced to the Colloredo-Mels collection in Udine and so leads to some interesting speculationss regarding the provenance of the harpsichord. A highly detailed article "A Florentine Harpsichord", concerning my research into this instrument can be found in the February 1998 issue of the quarterly journal EARLY MUSIC (Oxford). If you wish to hear this instrument, Colin Tilney has made several wonderful recordings with it on the Dorian lable, including: Bach: The Seven Toccatas for Harpsichord, DOR-90115; Harpsichord Music of Frescobaldi, DOR-90124; and Scarlatti Sonatas, DOR-90103, among others.