Piano de Gatos

Athanasius Kircher first described the cat piano in his landmark 1650 work Musurgia Universalis.


In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy.

From one of our favorite books, with several chapters on Kircher’s inventions, Instruments and the Imagination, by Thomas Hankins and Robert Silverman.

Documentado en 1650 en Musurgia Universalis el piano de gatos de Athanasius Kircher fue una creación destinada a divertir a un principe italiano. Se debían de escoger gatos con tonos de voz distintos y disponerlos en orden dentro de las jaulas del piano. Al pulsar las teclas una aguja pinchaba la cola del felino correspondiente.