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

342 actually the notice given to me is a basis of my reasons that are expressed in the treatise. First, one should reflect on the fact that I only claim to be the author of the third sound deriving from the two strings of any bowed instrument, and my whole treatise is about this. Therefore, in this regard the comment is superfluous because I know for sure that I am the one to have discovered the said third sound before anyone else. Secondly, one cannot claim that the phenomenon of the string, such as Ut, that produces another two high sounds, one at the 12th, the other at the 17th, is unknown to me. Roughly thirty lines before the first proposition of my treatise after having written these precise words it is a thing of marvel, that having observed the three sounds that are heard in just one taut string on the monochord, that is to say 1, 1/3, 1/5, it has not been inferred that the unit is in itself by nature harmonic, when 1, 1/3, 1/5 is harmonic progression etc.: so this phenomenon was known to me, I confess it to be someone else’s discovery, as is commonly known, but this is not enough. May it be observed that in the quoted passage I bring it up for the learned men (together also with the other commonly known phenomena) because, these phenomena being known to them, they have not inferred that the unit is harmonic in itself, and that the harmonic progression in any respect reduces the different to one, and to the same etc. It is clear that just as it is in music, Ut, Sol at the 12th, Mi at the 17th, so it is in a sounding line and in fractions 1, 1/3, 1/5. It is certain that in my treatise the quoted words are written, and I make use of the above-mentioned phenomenon (as commonly known) owing to the oversight of learned men. Therefore, the indication given to me seems superfluous. If then the above- mentioned indication is given to me (as it is in fact mentioned in your letter) because it is more or less believed that both my phenomenon and the others belonging to these sounds of consonance are and mean the same, one must here indeed be cautious, and one must not anticipate judgement before a whole and intrinsic exam of my treatise. The difference between my phenomenon and the others known is substantial, and the discovery of the harmonic root infinitely constant in 1/2 (that is the third sound) carries so much weight, that not only neither the most revered Signor Dottor Balbi nor Your Reverence can understand its importance for now, but not even I understand it enough. The present matter is of the utmost seriousness, and it is a grave mistake if one believes that it can be considered superficially. It must be delved into as much as one can and knows, so this indispensable necessity being known to me, I have placed myself and place myself again in your hands: certain that I could not choose two better men in head and in heart. But time must not be wasted in extrinsic things; there will be enough to do and say in the examination of the proposition of the treatise. Therefore, I beg you again to complete this examination, and where you do not see clearly, please stop and write to me, because I confide in God that the letters shall no longer be lost, and I shall certainly reply immediately, as I have hitherto done.