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

357 LETTERS and with the demonstrative part follow the physical part step by step. I indeed say that that demonstration, and what I say in the fifth proposition, will either be intrinsically understood or not. If not, the continuation of the examination is superfluous, because ultimately in that proposition the whole system is included. If yes, one should gladly carry on, because one shall infallibly come to a good conclusion. I am mortified then to tell you that for almost two months twenty pounds of chocolate have been in Rovigo to be duly sent to Padre Maestro Binelli. I have the misfortune that an otherwise good friend of mine failed me in a situation of such great concern to me. Moreover, I find it impossible to believe that at any moment (the roads, hitherto truly dreadful, are improving) the right occasion will not come. Here, for the feast of St Anthony, Signor Conte Camillo Grassi is expected. I am sure that he will do me the favour of taking with him the other twenty, which I keep here. Please maintain your love for me, have with me a saintly patience, and persuade the Most Illustrious Signor Dottor Balbi, to whom I submit my respects, to do the same, and I remain as ever Your Reverence’s most humble, devoted and obliged servant Giuseppe Tartini Padua, 19 May 1752 95. G.B. Martini to Tartini If we continue our reflections regarding the said dissertation by Your Most Illustrious Lordship, we are filled with a deep desire to understand the constancy of the workings of nature, which, having fixed laws, should always be the same. It manifests these laws to us by means of experiments, which, if they do not depend upon accidental and unknown circumstances, must be concordant without fault. I here take yours on the two consonant strings, which, played skilfully in perfect consonance, produce the third sound; and this experiment of yours I compare to that described by the gentlemen of the Académie Royale des Sciences in their appraisal of the treatise by Signor Rameau titled “ Démonstration du principe de l'harmonie ”. This consists in playing a sounding string so that it gives a clearly perceptible sound. This sound, once it is generated, makes immediately two others produced in the air, that is to say the 12th and the 17th of the awakened sound. If then nature wants that this string, having generated its sound, should produce the other two mentioned, every string will have to do this; therefore, when Your Most Illustrious Lordship plays your two strings simultaneously I cannot