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

287 LETTERS Therefore, Your Reverence may count how many times this has happened to him, and the damage that has come therefrom, and which shall always arise if no remedy is found. You should know that this is the third case I have encountered, which means I have clearly verified that with certain temperaments the lack of money at the right time is a mortal evil. I am obliged to tell you the truth, so that it may serve you as a rule to duly help the young man so that he can reach his objective. And furthermore, that it may never be thought that I am taking the money for myself rather than for the young man, I tell you that the urgency is not about the money for my fee, but that for his upkeep, and about this alone I am writing to you, my own being of no importance to me. I must tell you one other thing of great importance. I have seen with my own eyes a letter from Signor Girolamo Laurenti, 23 written in Padua to Signor Giuseppe Passarini, 24 in which the former says that he expects there to be in Bologna, in the person of Signor Paolino, an oracle, a prodigy, etc. Your Reverence will easily understand this manner of writing, so I beg you, if you care about the young man and our common reputation, not to let anybody at all hear him play, with the exception of His Eminence the Patron, and Your Reverence. Please do this my way, as I know it must be done thus, for now is not the time for him to be heard. The time shall come, God willing, and by the Feast of Saint Anthony of next year I hope that the young man will be accomplished, as long as a sure remedy is found for the affliction that clouds his studies and causes him to waste half of his time. May Your Reverence then take an interest therein, as is proper, and ensure that the young man does not leave Bologna if this affliction is not safely remedied, and if necessary you may read this letter to His Excellency the Patron, to whom I entreat you to convey my most obsequious respects, and to Your Reverence, whose hands I humbly kiss, I remain Your Reverence’s most devoted, most obliged Servant Giuseppe Tartini Ferrara, 16 August 1740 23 Probably Girolamo Nicolò Laurenti (1678-1751), son of Bartolomeo Girolamo, likewise a violinist and composer. See R. Eitner, “Laurenti, Nicolò Girolamo”, in Eitner, 1900: p. 76. 24 This might be the violinist Giuseppe Passarini (or Passerini), invited to Russia by the composer Francesco Araja in 1742 together with other Italian artists (the singer L. Saletti, the violinists T. Porta and A. Vaccari, the oboist Stazzi, the librettist G. Bonechi, the scene decorator G. Valeriani and the ballet master A. Rinaldi with his wife Antonina) to flesh out the staff of the Imperial Theatre of Saint Petersburg. See Giust, 2014, p.107.