The oldest harpsichord in the South Kensington Museum, of London, is a Venetian _clavicembalo_, signed and dated Joanes Antonius Baffo, Venetus, 1574. It has a compass of four and a half octaves from C to F. “Raising the top and looking inside, we observe the harp-like disposition of the strings, as in a modern grand piano, which led Galilei,[91] the father of the astronomer, Galileo, to infer the direct derivation of the harpsichord from the harp. In front, immediately over the keys, is the wrestplank, with the tuning-pins inserted, round which are wound the nearer ends of the strings—in this instrument two to each note—the further ends being attached to hitchpins, driven into the soundboard itself, and following the angle of the bent side of the case to the narrow end, where the longest strings are stretched. There is a straight bridge along the edge of the wrestplank and a curved bridge upon the soundboard. The strings pass over these bridges between which they vibrate, and the impulse of their vibrations is communicated by the curved bridge to the soundboard. The plectra, or jacks, with the exception that they carry points of leather instead of quills, are the same as in later instruments. This Venetian harpsichord has a separate case from which it could be withdrawn for performance, a contrivance usual in Italy, the outer case being frequently adorned with painting. Lastly, the natural keys are white and the sharps black, the rule in Italian keyed instruments, the German practice having been the reverse.”[92] [Illustration: CONCERT WITH HARPSICHORD _Eighteenth Century_] This was the kind of instrument—the _gravicembalo_—that had a place in the Monteverde’s Orchestra (see page 143), and that Domenico Scarlatti is playing in the illustration facing page 182. Just what the Amati family of Cremona was to the violin, the Ruckers family of Antwerp was to the harpsichord. The Ruckers made the most perfect and the most artistic of harpsichords. Altogether there were about forty Ruckers.