Although Germany was so partial to the clavichord with its intimate intellectuality--a quality which even to-day we can only reproduce in its fulness by reproducing the clavichord--yet it was the German pianoforte which for a long time took the lead. It was one of the first triumphs of German manufacture, and perhaps precisely because so little manufacture lay in it. In Italy the invention of Cristofori had vanished without leaving a trace. So utterly indeed was it forgotten, that when Italy decided, though very tardily, to replace the Gravicembalo by the pianoforte, instruments of this construction were preferably brought out there with the notice, “built in the Prussian manner.” Alongside of the Silbermann pianofortes, those of Friederici of Gera--which were known as “Fort Bien” and were still built largely on the clavichord model--and those of Spath of Regensburg, enjoyed a great renown in the second half of the century. But soon, chiefly through emigration, the best manufactories were transported to foreign parts, and it is only in the latest advance of German industry, especially by the labours of Bechstein and Blüthner, that pianos built in Germany itself have again achieved a world-wide repute. The great French, English, American, and Austrian piano-factories can almost all be traced back to Germans. The three great Parisian houses, those of Erard, Pleyel, and Pape, were founded by Germans. Steinway emigrated from Brunswick to build in America those pianos which are to-day regarded as the best. Johann Zumpe carried the hammer-clavier to England,[100] where it was played by German executants, and brought into repute. It was, however, English houses, with that of Broadwood at their head, that effected the improvements which have resulted in the appropriation of the name “English” to the mechanism of Silbermann.