Editing Spinet (section)

===History===
[[File:GMax StillLifeGirlAtSpinet.jpg|thumb|left|''Girl at a Spinet'', 1871 painting by [[Gabriel von Max]]]]

Harpsichord historian [[Frank Hubbard]] wrote in 1967, "the earliest [bentside] spinet known to me was made by [[Hieronymus de Zentis]] in 1631. It is quite possible that Zentis was the inventor of the type so widely copied in other countries."{{sfn|Hubbard|1967|p={{page needed|date=March 2020}}}} He further notes that the spinet in France was sometimes called the ''épinette à l'italienne'', supporting an Italian origin.

In England, builders included John Player, Thomas Barton, Charles Haward, Stephen Keene, [[Cawton Aston]], and Thomas Hitchcock.

The spinet was later developed into the ''[[spinettone]]'' ("big spinet") by [[Bartolomeo Cristofori]] (1655–1731), the inventor of the [[piano]]. The spinettone incorporated multiple choirs of strings, with a [[Disposition (harpsichord)|disposition]] of 1 × 8 ft, 1 × 4 ft, and used the same ingenious mechanism for changing stops that Cristofori had earlier used for his [[oval spinet]]. The spinettone was a local success among the musicians of the [[Medici]] court,{{sfn|Montanari|2002}} and Cristofori eventually built a total of four of them.<ref>Source for this paragraph except as noted: {{harvnb|Kottick|2003|pp=213–214}}</ref>

Spinets are occasionally made today, sometimes from kits, and serve the same purpose they always have, of saving money and space.