An Italian harpsichord provided with soft leather plectra, but otherwise typical in its construction. It is described by its anonymous Roman inventor in 1775. In its most complex version there were two sets of double-tongued jacks, each with normal quill plectra on one side and soft leather on the other. By means of a pedal, the registers could be moved so that the two sets of 8' strings were both plucked either by quill or by leather. The Florentine maker Vincenzio Sodi applied this idea in some of his harpsichords.
Lettera dell’ autore del nuovo cembalo angelico (Rome, 1775; Eng. trans. in R. Russell: The Harpsichord and Clavichord (London, 1959, rev. 2/1973), 131–42)
JOHN KOSTER