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

390 of a painting of a world that no longer exists. Conversely, it will be the greatest delight of gentle souls if we take nature as a subject and are capable of painting those aspects that it presents to us and those combinations among which we were born; if we no longer decide to put into the field and recall things which already vanished from the world a while ago; if we decide not to repeat what has been said many times a lot better than we could ever repeat; if we will be able to impress the majesty and the decorum of the expression of the ancients in things local to us and modern. In accordance with such an idea, I have decided to take, I shall say it like this, the world as it is; to bring the things into my verses as they are today. And I have focussed my study on forming for myself a style suited to the modifications of my heart and imagination; Flacci animos, non res et verba, secutus , of that poet of man, in whom everybody finds his own account, and whose humour and standard of living I would almost say is suitable in a certain way to my own. From that I have also learned to work on and modify my little things, until they are not so very far from the aim; bearing in mind above everything else the tenui deducta poemata filo . In fact the clothes one wears for special occasions ought to be refined, soft, of the noblest wool or silk. The excesses and the youthfulness which luxuriated in my things I have trimmed with critical shears. Nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit . The aim, in a word, which I have dared to propose to myself, is to be liked by those whose taste, similar to yours, is almost the flower of reason: ... Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim Tollere humo And since you so approve the path upon which I have set myself, I shall also dare to add victorque virum volitare per ora . May you continue to love me and to compose for me those sonatas of yours, which due to their indescribable grace and elegance cause the Corellis to be forgotten and remind one of the style of Raphael and Petrarch. 110. Tartini to G.B. Martini Finally, the opportunity has come to get this letter into Your Reverence’s hands without making use of the post. This letter of mine is too precious so I have given it, for its delivery, to the nephew of Signor Don Antonio, a Capuchin priest, godson of mine, by whom it will be delivered to you there. I shall then not talk about Your Reverence: you are a priest, you are a confessor, and you are in yourself such a person, whom alone I believe, and whom alone I trust in my present circumstances. I shall therefore give you sincere news on the book, which will not be published before the last days of June. Counterpoint, which I treat there, and which appears in the title and in the substance of the book, is nothing else, in truth, if not the term I use to