Giuseppe Tartini - Lettere e documenti / Pisma in dokumenti / Letters and Documents - Volume / Knjiga / Volume I

86 Azzoguidi 108 and Giacomo Antonio Perti, 109 both of whom belonged to the Bolognese environment. The violinist made use of Azzoguidi, a Franciscan who had come to preach in Padua, to deliver the letter to Martini. Perti, maestro di cappella at S. Petronio, is included in the group of “ sig[no]ri maestri ” to whom Martini was to have submitted Tartini’s physical and mathematical theories, which with feigned modesty the violinist called “trifles” ( frascherie ). 110 The date of the previous letter (10 December 1730) is questioned by the compiler of the updated catalogue of the Martini correspondence, Anna Schnoebelen, on the basis of the content, which concerned matters that emerged only later on. 111 Yet on the basis of the letter we are dealing with here, the one from the following year preserved in Vienna (which Schnoebelen gives no indication of knowing), all doubts about the dating unreservedly collapse if we date the early formulation of Tartini’s theoretical thinking back to his first Paduan years after his return from Prague. This earlier dating thus suggests there was a first phase in the evolution of his theories, about which he wished to inform Martini in order to obtain authoritative feedback. Tartini’s replies to the “objections” raised 112 anticipate certain topics found in the Trattato and which at the time were the subject of debate amongst European scholars: for example, the princi- ples governing the harmonic theory or the quantity and variety of tones and semitones. There is yet no mention of the “squaring of the circle”, an issue that later became central in his system. Martini was already an esteemed scholar of ancient music, counterpoint and harmony, and hence qualified as the perfect correspondent. Tartini appears at ease in sharing his ideas with the Franciscan and their relationship already seems to be fairly informal. While in the letter from 1730 he entreats Martini to study his system and have it studied as much as possible, with the aim of finding “new and more important difficulties”, in the letter of the following year he appears instead embarrassed and wor- ried when he discovers that his theories have been discussed by personalities of Perti’s calibre. 113 He then begs his friend to keep his observations “buried in your chamber”, 108 Azzoguidi, Antonio Maria (1697-1770) was a Bolognese conventual friar minor, scholar of theolo- gy and preacher. He published the Expositio in Psalmos (psalms of Saint Anthony, drawn from a manuscript believed to be an autograph) in Bologna in 1757, and other works. See Da Venezia, 1846: p. 792. 109 Perti, Giacomo Antonio (1661-1756) was maestro di cappella at S. Petronio, a composer of sacred music, opera and oratorio, and a teacher. One of his students was Padre Martini. See A. Schnoebelen and M. Vanscheeuwijck, "Perti, Giacomo Antonio", in Ng. 110 From the letter we learn that the subjects dealt with were: “what the practice of the two consonant intervals, as they are currently dealt with in our practical music, consists of, for they are neither more nor new, but I say that they are not known as consonant, nor known in the strength of their just intonation, because of a flaw in the tuning of the harpsichord.” (Letter 6). 111 According to the author, this concerns “matters that came two decades later”. Shnoebelen, 1979: p. 605. 112 Letter 5. 113 Such statements are certainly also the result of the affected modesty that was part of Tartini’s char-