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

416 131. Tartini to [Michele Stratico?] I have thought better. I submit to Your Most Illustrious Lordship my reply to your objections, with said objections marked with numbers, which request a reply. You may reflect upon them with the utmost ease: it is sufficient for me to have the two documents and your new observations back by the last days of the present month; for the 29th to be precise. Please endure the inconvenience graciously and contribute cheerfully to a public good which, in essence, means more than it seems. If the Most Reverend Padre Stellini, to whom I convey my most respectful regards, can contribute to it without any considerable inconvenience on his part, may he do so, as I heartily beg him to. To you a thousand most cordial embraces, to the Most Illustrious Signor Eliano my most cordial regards, and as always I remain Your Most Illustrious Lordship’s Padua, 12 September 1756 132. Tartini to [Michele Stratico?] In the Philosophical Grammar by the English author Benjamin Martin, 83 in Chapter 8 on sound at page 82 (Veneto edition) and note number 200, I have read these precise words: And hence, 'tis plain, there is somewhat besides the Frequency of the Coincidences of Vibrations, that qualifies the Ratio for Concordance of pleasing Sound, for else 4 : 7, or 5 : 7, both Discords, would be preferable to 5: 8, a Concord, contrary to Experience . Here is the origin of my mistake with regard to 4,7: not having reflected that 4,7 is a higher ratio than 5,8; nor did I suspect a solecism where fundamentals are taught. But it is in fact true that the coincidences are more frequent between 5,8 than between 4,7; and here I am wrong, but then I am not with regard to 5,7 compared to 5,8; and there is no doubt here; nor am I wrong concerning the common formula of the instructions contained between 1,6, from which one has to depart with regard to 5,8; nor am I wrong with regard to the last ratio of the sextuple system, which is 5,6, relative to Euler’s formula taken in its simplicity of exponent and divisors, i.e. without any other supports. That in both systems there is a necessary limitation and 83 Benjamin Martin (1704-1782). The work to which Tartini refers is The Philosophical Grammar; Being a View of the Present State of Experimented Physiology, or Natural Philosophy, in Four Parts (1735) (in Italian Gramatica delle scienze filosofiche o Breve analisi della filosofia moderna , Venezia, Stamperia Remondini 1750).