The oldest piano

A weird thought occurred to me the other day, prompted by the violin-napping (and subsequent safe return) of a valuable Stradivarius.  I wondered where the oldest piano in the world was.  The Strads and Guarneris and a few other well-made violins from older days are well-known and tracked and even named.  I knew that the piano was a relatively recent invention (based on and inspired by the harpsichord, according to my brain), but I didn't know who made the first piano, where the oldest pianos were, and other trivia like that.

This being the Internet and World Wide Web era, it wasn't hard to find out.

It turns out that the first pianos were made by an Italian (of course) named Cristofori, who was first a harpsichord maker and player.  He made the first pianos, some of which still exist today.

I got all that (and more) from this site:   Piano history:  the Complete Story

Then I looked around for the actual oldest piano, and it turns out there are still three Cristoforis in museums.  He made a clever hammer mechanism action that wasn't duplicated by other makers for a couple of hundred years.

I got that from this site, about the Metropolitan Museum of Art's (New York) Cristofori piano.

Grand Piano, 1720 , Made by Bartolomeo Cristofori (Italian, 1655–1731)   (includes a picture)
and here:  The Pianofortes of Bartolomeo Cristofori

The other two extant Cristofori pianos are in the Museo Strumenti Musicali in Rome and at the Musikinstrumenten-Museum of Leipzig University. The one in New York is the oldest.

So now you know.