What Is The History Of The Piano?

In terms of musical history, the piano is a rather recent development. Although there are records of keyboard instruments dating back as far as the middle of the fourteenth century, it was not until about 1700 that the first real piano came into existence. It was the invention of Bartolomeo Cristofori, a maker of harpsichords in Florence, Italy. The harpsichord had come to be the most popular keyboard instrument of the time, but it had the disadvantage of being able to produce music of virtually only one volume, since the mechanism merely plucked the strings. Variety was achieved by the addition of different groups of strings, but still the player could not alter the sound significantly by the way in which he struck the note. Cristofori's invention, on the other hand, made use of small hammers that struck the strings rather than plucking them. This innovation enabled the player to control the sound of each note by the force with which he struck the key. He could accent certain notes, and he had at his disposal the whole range of volume from piano (soft) to forte (loud). The new instrument was called gravicembalo col piano e forte ("harpsichord with soft and loud"), later simplified to "pianoforte" and eventually to "piano."

While the piano underwent many changes over the following years, Cristofori's instrument had the essentials of the modern piano: wire strings, hammers, keys, dampers (small pads that rest against the string to stop the tone when the key is released) and an escapement, a device that allows the hammer to fall away from the string while the key is still held down. Cristofori's piano, however, met with little success in Italy. Consequently, he went back to making harpsichords, leaving the further development of the new instrument to others.

Germans living in Germany, Austria, England and America made most of the important contributions to the piano's development in the years that followed. In the early 1700's Gottfried Silbermann of Freiberg in eastern Germany became acquainted with Cristofori's design and began building pianos. Later, his pupil Johann A. Stein began building them at Augsburg in southern Germany.

But in order for the piano to continue to develop it was necessary that musicians like the instrument and be moved to write piano music. Johann Sebastian Bach, the great German composer, is reported to have played Silbermann pianos, though they never caught his imagination. But two of Bach's sons, Carl Phillipp Emanuel and Johann Christian, made significant contributions that aided the piano in gaining acceptance. C. P. E. Bach wrote the first dependable guide to piano fingering, Essay on Keyboard Instruments, as well as 210 compositions for the keyboard. His youngest brother, Johann Christian, is credited with the first public performance on the piano in London in 1777

The word piano is originally pianoforte which means  piano-quiet/soft and forte-loud/strong. Is the piano linked to the harpsichord in any way?