Bartolomeo Cristofori's production of a cembalo with a viable hammer action, first documented in 1700, has always been recognized as an epochal breakthrough for Western music. Commencing an article discussing three grand pianos in the Florentine tradition, John Koster observed astutely that ‘arguably, no new invention in the history of music has had a greater or more lasting influence. Within a few decades of its appearance, Cristofori's invention, the piano, was known and imitated throughout most of Europe’ (see ‘Three Grand Pianos in the Florentine Tradition’, Revue française d'organologie et d'iconographie musicale 4/2 (1999), 95)
