3-028-197 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Musical Instruments at the South Kensington Museum: Spinet, 1870. 'The Italian spinet, made by Annibale Rosso, of Milan, in 1577, was purchased at the Paris Exhibition for £1200. It is...of wood and ivory, set with nearly 2000 precious stones, turquoises, rubies and garnets, pearls, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts, topazes, agates and jaspers, lapis lazuli, and others. The shape of this instrument is like the dulcimer; it is open at the top, and fitted with strings, to the range of four octaves and a semitone, having one string for each tone. It has a circular sound-hole in the middle of the sound-board. There is a mention of this particular spinet in an old Italian book called "La Nobilta di Milano," which states that it was bought for 500 scudi, or crowns, by Signor Carlo Trivulzio, and that it was much admired...It is now almost entirely superseded by the pianoforte, "but may still occasionally be met with in the house of the German village schoolmaster, or of the country parson".' From "Illustrated London News", 1870.