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

339 LETTERS at the 17th, so it is in fractions and in the sounding line 1, 1/3, 1/5. Likewise, I do not doubt that you have read the words of the passage quoted. Therefore, the comment made to me seems superfluous also in this regard. Then, if Your Reverence believes (as you in fact mention) that more or less both the phenomena already known and that discovered by me are, and mean, the same, because usually in both the former and the latter other sounds are heard apart from the given natural sound, I beg you to be cautious in this early judgement of yours. The real judgement of the substantial difference of my phenomenon from any other one hitherto known cannot be given until after the (intrinsic, not superficial) examination of the whole of my treatise. As much for the discovery of the harmonic root infinitely constant in 1/2 (and it is the discovered third sound) as for other things, not only can neither the most revered Signor Dottor Balbi nor Your Reverence understand its weight, but not even I understand it well enough. The present matter is of the utmost seriousness, and it is a grave mistake to consider it superficially. It is necessary to delve into it as much as possible, and therefore knowing at my cost this absolute necessity, I have placed myself and I place myself in your hands again, certain that I could not choose two men who are better than you in both head and heart. But time must absolutely not be wasted in extrinsic things, for there will be enough to do and say in the intrinsic examination of the proposition, for which the treatise is made. I would have so much more to say on the subject, but I deem useless everything which is not immediately addressed to the intention of the matter. This I increasingly recommend to you. But as I see very well what is happening, I must strongly recommend to you something else. You two are (equally) men of particular talent and spirit. Nonetheless please beware in the present case of that prejudice from which it is, however, almost impossible to defend oneself. You know which and how many great men have dealt with harmony, and have read and seen what has been inferred by them. That now a mere violin player should emerge and should claim not only to see and know what such men have neither seen nor known, but furthermore he should make use of harmony to discover that which the learned mathematical world was not able to discover, this is something that, as true as it may be, can never be credible. For all that is most sacred, I beg you to defend yourselves for now from such prejudice and to resolutely undertake the real examination. The purpose and the conclusion will explain everything, and you will be extremely glad to have spent your time not on a frivolity, but on the most important thing that can be treated amongst us men. You shall find (I am telling you in advance) my proposition to be quite true, and with you the entire learned world shall find it so. But if God, in his greater glory, wants to utilise a donkey’s jawbone (which is me) to confuse the arrogance of others, you will fear perhaps that the donkey’s jawbone does not have the effect intended by God? This is the truth of the present case. Do you, as excellent Christians (I wish I were so) seriously think, as by the grace of God I am not such a fool, that I want to exploit the name of