[1][3] That brutal monarch, Louis XI of France, is said to have constructed, with the assistance of the Abbé de Baigne, an instrument designated a "pig organ," for the production of natural sounds.

[4] The American quickstep song La Piganino mocked Italian influences on amateur music and popular culture in the 19th-century US.

The 19th century played on various allegations, besides Piganino, further nicknames used for the fictitious instrument were "Hog Harmonium", "Swineway" or "Porko Forte".

Burlesquing genteel taste, amateur vocalists, and the vogue for Italianizing the names of all things with musical associations, this cartoon also anticipates the ingenious and surrealistic machines of Rube Goldberg.

We may suppose that in more than a few parlors "La Piganino" was slipped onto the music rack as a hint to the vocalist when the evening reached that point at which guests' ears began to droop.

[9] In the film Le Libertin (2000), the philosopher Denis Diderot is depicted as a screwball eccentric, trying to have his forbidden Encyclopédie printed under the eyes of Catholic fanatics.