History of the harpsichord

The harpsichord was an important keyboard instrument in Europe from the 15th through the 18th centuries, and as revived in the 20th, is widely played today. == Origins == The New Grove musical dictionary summarizes the earliest historical traces of the harpsichord: "The earliest known reference to a harpsichord dates from 1397, when a jurist in Padua wrote that a certain Hermann Poll claimed to have invented an instrument called the 'clavicembalum'; and the earliest known representation of a harpsichord is a sculpture (see below) in an altarpiece of 1425 from Minden in north-west Germany." Whoever invented the harpsichord did not have to proceed from scratch.

Source: Wikipedia — History of the harpsichord (CC BY-SA 4.0)