first famous clavier-manufactory, that of the Ruckers at Antwerp, who flourished at the end of the sixteenth century; there were almost as many names as shapes. Those with smaller cases were called Virginals, those in the shape of a swine’s head were called Spinets (“Spinet” referring to the plectrum of quill); while the larger instruments were “Clavi-cymbals” (cembalo, a “dulcimer”; though the clavicymbal was a _harp-with-keys_, not by any means a dulcimer, which is the progenitor of the pianoforte, a very different matter), or in Italy “Gravicymbels,” in England “Harpsichords,” in France “Clavecins.” The keyboard, at first incomplete in the lower “short” octave,[23] gradually spread itself over three or even five octaves. The fulness of tone was greater, but the touch necessarily heavier than of old. The new instrument was unsuited for the quick development of a natural system of “fingering.” [Illustration: A Concerted Performance. Engraved by H. Goltzius (1558-1617).] The technique of clavier-playing advanced but slowly from the mere tapping of the finger-ends to the dexterity of to-day, which lays under contribution the whole arm as far as the elbow. In the first clavier and organ “school,” which was published by Girolamo Diruta in Venice about 1600, and which bears the title, “Il Transilvano, sopra il vero modo di sonare organi e stromenti di Penna,” are already to be found rules for the use of the fingers, for the holding of the hands, and as to the differences of organ and clavier-playing; but fifty years later, according to Weitzmann, Lorenzo Penna,[24] in his “Albori musicali,” knows no other rules than that the hand should be raised high, and that, as the right ascends the scale and the left descends, the third and fourth fingers should be alternately used, and _vice versa_ with the third and second. Old pictures confirm this statement. In England we meet notable examples of the influence of this Italian fingering. The thumb, as the finger that passes under the others, is still for a long time an _enfant terrible_. The technique is still that of the zither, simply transferred to keys. It is not till the time of Bach that the special technique of percussion springs into existence.