1636—Paris, France

Marin Mersenne discusses serpent and includes a woodcut of the instrument in his Harmonie universelle (see below image; public domain). Among other comments, he says the following in describing the serpent: “To accompany as many as twenty of the most powerful singers and yet play the softest chamber music with the most delicate grace notes,” “But the true bass of the cornett is performed with the Serpent, so that one can say that one without the other is a body without a soul,” “Even when played by a boy it is sufficient to support the voices of twenty robust monks,” and “It seems that the irregular distance of the holes of the Serpent makes its diapason more difficult than that of the other instruments.”