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

345 LETTERS 88. Tartini to G.B. Martini I wrote another of my letters to Your Reverence three weeks ago, in which I begged you to aid me (as far as possible) in the shipping of forty pounds of chocolate, which by the grace of God is excellent, to be divided between you and the worthiest Signor Dottor Balbi, and I also wrote to you of the reason why I ask for your help in this matter, and it is that one cannot ship via Venice without paying, in duties, as much as the chocolate is worth. Your Reverence is therefore entreated again for help in this matter, while I remind you, as I wrote to you in my other letter, that between us there must be true trust and no formalities or secrets. Indeed I must tell you in this regard, that if I consider that my treatise 52 has been there for almost a year, not seeing the end of it, I deduce that either the treatise is the work of a fanatic, or that the treatise is so obscure that it cannot be understood, or that the treatise does not achieve the truth that it aspires to. And I shall never think that this is due to the lack of will by two such great patrons of mine, who, through their kindness, love me greatly. Now, speaking sincerely among ourselves, Your Reverence and Signor Dottor Balbi must be assured, upon my conscience and my honour, that whatever the two of you conclude and decide is not only incapable of offending me and causing me pain and mortification, but actually increases my obligations towards you; for I am most certain of two things: firstly, that you shall judge according to reason and heart, as you really understand; the other, that in this endeavour I have no other passion than the one and only concern with discovering the truth. As I am therefore certain of you, so should you be even more utterly certain of me, who by the grace of God, although I am full of faults, I do not have the fault of presumption, vainglory, etc. I love truth with a passion, and this is more than everything to me. I therefore pray you, if one can pray to men, to send me your decision, whatever it may be, and simply because truth cannot be separated from reason, please do me the favour of sending me the decision accompanied by the reasons that made you thus decide. I beg you to convey my regards to the Most Illustrious Signor Dottor Balbi, together with my present entreaty, as I convey them to Your Reverence, and as ever I remain Your Most Reverend Fatherhood’s most humble, devoted and obliged servant Giuseppe Tartini Padua, 3 March 1752 52 This refers to a version of the Trattato di musica secondo la vera scienza dell'armonia , which was published in 1754.