Note 16 — Chapter IV · The New Life
George P. (George Putnam) Upton translation
Clavicembalo was the name of the usual form of the piano in the sixteenth century. It was the successor of the clavichord and the predecessor of the hammer-clavier. It had various forms and names. In Germany it was called klavier and sometimes monocordo, and in England spinet or virginal, according to its size or shape. Cembalist is the equivalent of our word “pianist.”