Giovanni Battista Boni

Giovanni Battista Boni, also known as Boni da Cortona, was an Italian harpsichord maker whose activity took place almost entirely in Rome. Although he came from Cortona, his entire professional life unfolded in the papal capital, and he died in 1641. His importance rests above all on the technical history of Italian keyboard instruments at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

In Rome he worked on several occasions in the service of three nephews of Pope Urban VIII, being responsible for the upkeep and supply of harpsichords, as well as for the construction and repair of chamber organs. His successor in those same households was Girolamo Zenti.

Five harpsichords can be attributed with certainty to Boni, of which only two bear his signature. As for the two virginals bearing his name, both held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, only the one of 1602 could be his work, as the one of 1617 was made by Bolcioni.

His instruments are of interest above all for their use of split sharps, an Italian practice that made it possible to obtain enharmonically equivalent notes. Furthermore, a harpsichord of around 1619, in a private collection, has naturals divided in the bass octave, which makes it the earliest known example of this solution.