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The clavicytherium is a harpsichord with an upright case. Because it saved space, and because the sound issued directly into the room, it enjoyed a wide popularity until the late 18th century. It was first mentioned by Paulus Paulirinus of Prague in a treatise circa 1460, and the first drawing of the instrument can be found in a fresco in the Pfarrkirche St. Leonhard in Dornbach (Kärnten, Austria). Like all early keyboard instruments, the clavicytherium was not only an aesthetical-musical sound-producer, but also a cosmological instrumentum--a manifestation of harmonious world numerology in sound. For the then-receding Middle Ages and the emerging Renaissance, the world's inner essence--according to Pythagorean theory combined with a cabalistic understanding of the Bible--consisted of numbers and proportions: "But Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight" (The Wisdom of Solomon 11:20).