In 021220 MMDigest Philip Jamison wrote about a CD of laterna music,
"Nikos Armaos: Laterna Kai Ntefi".  In a private email to Christian
Greinacher, Craig Smith told of a web site about the Turkish laterna
and its artisans:

  http://studentweb.providence.edu/~acekin/laterna/
  Istanbul Laternasi: nostalgic music from the old times

According to author Cemal Unlu, the laterna traveled from Turkey to
Greece in 1923.  Some excerpts (edited and condensed):

 - - -

  The laterna, a mechanical instrument which repeated programmed
melodies, first appeared in Istanbul at the end of the 19th century.
This type consisted of the laterna and a "civili laterna" (laterna with
pins).  The civili laterna was a model developed by the Swiss Aristide
Janivier in 1776.

  A Leventine [one born in an eastern Mediterranean land] by the name
of Guiseppe Turconi began to sell laternas which he imported from Italy
to his shop in Istanbul.  Naturally these laternas were programmed to
play Italian melodies and waltzes.

  Most of the laterna masters were primarily Istanbulites who migrated
to Greece after the population exchange of 1923.

(Fearing Turkish reprisals, an estimated 50,000 Greeks fled Istanbul
following the Asia Minor Campaign of 1919 and the Greek destruction
of Turkish Smyrna (Izmir) in 1922.  The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923
caused even more Greeks to flee, even though Istanbul was specifically
exempt from the population exchange.)

  In taverns in the countryside and in Greek religious festivals, the
laterna constituted the mainstay of musical entertainment, replacing
performances by live musical ensembles.

  In Pire, Istanbul-born Nikos Armaos dedicated his life to this
instrument and was probably the greatest master of all time.  Thus the
Istanbul laterna came to life again in Athens, Greece.  Nikos Armaos
organized, collected and made new arrangements of many zeybek and kasap
melodies.  He added some "2,000 works, of which the majority were his
own compositions that were not drawn from songs", by attaching pins.

  Nikos Armaos was recorded on two LP records in Greece; he died in
Athens in May 1979 at the age of 90.

 - - -

I have a feeling that the laterna builders and noteurs of Istanbul
before 1923 were mostly from the resident Greek community.  (Recall
that Istanbul was formerly Constantinople, a Greek holding.)  If so,
then it seems that the laternas of Greece and Turkey are really the
same instrument, built and played by the same people, and differing
only in the melodies they play.

Robbie Rhodes
Etiwanda, CA