Glass harmonica Franz Mesmer also played the armonica and used it as an integral part of his Mesmerism. An original Franklin armonica is in the archives at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, having been donated in 1956 by Franklin's descendants after "the children took great delight in breaking the bowls with spoons" during family gatherings. It is only placed on display for special occasions, such as Franklin's birthday. The Franklin Institute is also the home of the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. A website has attempted to catalog publicly known Franklin-era glass armonicas. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has an early 19th-century
Glass harmonica the rim of a wine goblet to produce tones is documented back to Renaissance times; Galileo considered the phenomenon (in his "Two New Sciences"), as did Athanasius Kircher. The Irish musician Richard Pockrich is typically credited as the first to play an instrument composed of glass vessels (glass harp) by rubbing his fingers around the rims. Beginning in the 1740s, he performed in London on a set of upright goblets filled with varying amounts of water. His career was cut short by a fire in his room, which killed him and destroyed his apparatus. Edward Delaval, a friend of Benjamin