The Evolution of the Baroque Flute     |     home
Introduction   |   Early Origins of the Flute   |   Types of Flutes   |   Common Materials   |   Development of the Flute   |   Drawings   |   The Hotteterre Family   |   Makers of Baroque Flutes   |   Composers of High Baroque Flute Music   |   Fun Flute Facts   |   Bibliography
Early Origins of the Flute
    Although the flute was used by many different civilizations, is it still unknown as to who actually invented the flute. One thing that is known is the origin of the word flute, which is derived "flatus", the Latin word for "blast" or "breath"(2).
    The earliest known mention of a transverse flute is in the ninth century BCE Chinese epic poem Shih Ching, but the earliest pictorial evidence of existence of a transverse flute occurred on an urn found near Perugia, Italy.  It was dated back to the second century BCE, and showed a relief of a musician playing a transverse flute (2).  Also, a Roman coin dating from 169 AD depicts a transverse flute.
    The earliest pictorial evidence of the transverse flute in Europe, however, is a miniature of a singer, fiddler and transverse flute player on a fourteenth century Minnesinnger manuscript (2).  As early flutes were very fragile and usually could not stand up to constant use or time, the earliest surviving copies of an early flute are from the fifteenth century (2).