Giuseppe Ravizza Giuseppe Ravizza Giuseppe Ravizza, a prolific typewriter inventor, was born in Novara, Italy in 1811 (died 1885), and spent nearly 40 years of his life obsessively grappling with the complexities of inventing a usable writing machine. He called his invention "" because of its piano-type keys and keyboard. The story of the 16 models he produced between 1847 and the early 1880s is described in "The Writing Machine" and illustrated from Ravizza’s 1855 patent, which bears similarities to the later upstroke design of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter. In 1868, the American Christopher Latham Sholes (1819-1890) patented, on behalf of
Percy Scholes of some 2000 pages. The 2002 edition, edited by Alison Latham, reverted to the original title, and single-volume format. Percy Scholes Percy Alfred Scholes M.A., Hon.D.Mus. (Oxon), F.S.A., F.R.Hist.S., A.R.C.M., F.T.S.C. (24 July 1877 – 31 July 1958) was an English musician, journalist and prolific writer, whose best-known achievement was his compilation of the first edition of "The Oxford Companion to Music". His 1948 biography "The Great Dr Burney" was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He was born in Leeds in 1877 and was educated privately, owing to his poor health as a child. He became an organist,