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

92 After the publication of the De’ principî , the violinist found himself again facing the criticism of the European academic world, as had already happened after the reception of his first work. More and more steadfast in his convictions, Tartini rejects the criti- cisms that come from France and shares his frustrations with Martini in the many letters written in 1767 and 1768. Once more, the Franciscan shows considerable patience towards Tartini. The violinist’s impulsive and verbose nature appears to become fur- ther aggravated during the last years of his life. Completely absorbed by his theoretical speculations, Tartini finds once again in Martini a mild, understanding and impartial correspondent, in spite of the many negative opinions expressed by the numerous other correspondents and common acquaintances, both on the theories and on the character of the violinist. 136 The friendship between those two great representatives of the eighteenth-century Italian musical scene was cemented by hundreds of letters, a friendship sometimes pe- culiar in its dynamics, in which often “the learned Bolognese took on the role of a magister foreign to the complicated speculations of the discipulus , and the latter obsti- nately declared himself as such... but only in words”, 137 and favours and opinions were exchanged, on both minor everyday matters and on weighty subjects. What makes this epistolary exchange particularly precious is, as Tartini himself writes in one of his last letters, “that trust and sincerity of heart, which mutually obliges us to avoid hiding the truth from one another,” 138 thereby offering us a glimpse into the complex personality of the violinist from a privileged perspective. 2.3 Exchanges and favours: works, teaching activities and everyday life Besides the letters dealing with strictly theoretical topics, many are the subjects raised in the correspondence. Martini and Tartini shared more than one interest, as both were composers and teachers. The professional profiles of the two emerge in the letters not so much in the shar- ing of methods or ideas, as in the exchange of favours relating to students and to the commercial success of their respective works. The first instance dates to the early years of their correspondence: for the publication of his second work, the collection of Sonate d’involatura per organo o per cembalo , Padre Martini wished to look for a printer from outside Bologna 139 and considered the Dutchman Le Cène, 140 profiting 136 See for example the letters of Balbi, Paolucci and Vallotti in I-Bc. On the descriptions of Tartini’s character in the letters from Paolucci to Martini, see Vatielli, 1917: pp. 49-54. 137 Cavallini, 1980: p. 124. 138 Letter 176. 139 On this topic, see also Busi, 1891: pp. 349-359 and Cavallini, 1980: p. 109. 140 Le Cène, Michel-Charles. A Dutch printer who succeeded Estienne Roger. See “Le Cène, Michel-