Origins
Inventor: Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731), an Italian instrument maker in Florence.
Date: Around 1700, Cristofori built the first instrument he called a “gravicembalo col piano e forte” — meaning harpsichord with soft and loud.
Reason for invention: Harpsichords (the main keyboard instrument of the 1600s) could not vary loudness by touch. Cristofori solved this by using hammers to strike strings instead of plucking them.
Mechanism: When a key was pressed, a felt-covered hammer struck the string, producing sound with dynamics depending on how hard or softly the key was played.