Jovemardi, Bartolomé

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Jovemardi, Bartolomé

Jovemardi, Bartolomé, Italian harpist and music theorist; b. Rome, c. 1600; d. Madrid, July 22, 1668. He studied mathematics, law, and music in Rome. In 1632 he went to Barcelona, and in 1633 he became harpist of the royal chapel and in 1642 a musician of the Cámara Real. In 1655 he returned to Italy. Jovernardi was the inventor of a cross-strung chromatic harp and reputedly of a harpsichord capable of producing a crescendo. His treatise Tratado de la mussica (1634) deals with the classification of instruments.

—Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire