I was wandering around in the web when I found the John Tuttle's home
page, talking about automatic musical instruments.  He suggested me to
join the MMD.

Some years ago, my father bought an Aeolian auto-piano, dated around 1920.
It took several years to restore it (in the spare time), but when we
heard the first note coming out of it, pushing on the pedals, it was
really a great emotion.  Starting from there, we began collecting piano
rolls and historical information about their history.

Our greatest interest is for the historical aspect.  We tried to go to
the roots of the history of piano rolls in Italy, and we found some
interesting material, such as old rolls catalogues and some original
pictures about rolls manufacturing.

Automatic pianos never had a great diffusion in Italy, because of the
high cost.  Anyway, between the years 1908-1932, an Italian factory
located in Cremona ("FIRST" -- Fabbrica Italiana Rulli Sonori Traforati)
produced original piano rolls for 65 and 88-note pianolas.

If this could be of any interest for MMD, I can provide some more
detailed info about that.  (From my first note, John understood that
"FIRST" is still producing rolls; sorry, but the last roll came out in
1932.)  It is my intention to collect all the materials in a sort of
electronic book, and to "publish" it in html form thru my web page at

    http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/3537

I have very little spare time to do that, so it'll take a long time to
complete.  If anyone is interested, please come to my page and leave a
message or send e-mail to me.  Thanks.

Marco Riva
mriva@ibm.net.

 [ Hallo Marco !  I hope that our members around the world can help find
 [ "FIRST" rolls for you.  Where do you live?  I see at your web site
 [ "my job" that you seem to work with computers, and at "places" that
 [ you enjoy mountain climbing !  Welcome to MMD.  -- Robbie