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

421 LETTERS representative to assign the general tax to them, so that it is proportionally distributed by them, in particular among the musicians salaried by them. In this case it may well happen that, as the salary is reduced, some musicians will no longer wish to serve at the Ark of Saint Anthony, and will go elsewhere to look for bread, which is his only support. But the above-mentioned problems that have already occurred in the tax imposed by His Excellency Foscarini should never occur. Therefore, you are entreated etc. 136. Tartini to the presidents of the Ark of Saint Anthony News submitted to the Most Reverend and Noble Presidents on the matter of the tax imposed on the musicians of Saint Anthony. Taxed by His Excellency Foscarini the musicians serving the Venerable Ark, having made Tartini their leader on this matter, so that he could promote the common reasons, he immediately appealed to the Presidency; in particular to the Most Reverend Father Warden, and to the noble Count Guglielmo Camposampiero, then President. By them the matter was treated in congregation; the result was to entrust Tartini, before any commitment of the Presidency, to submit the reasons of the musicians to the appropriate public tribunal, and in the meantime the Presidency would await the favourable opportunity to undertake the commitment itself. In obedience of this commission, Tartini obtained an edict from His Excellency the current Captain, for the reasons of the musicians to be heard, as has happened. The reasons produced are two; ecclesiastical prohibition of being able to take part in the services of nuns, proven by means of a legal document; continuous uncertainty of earnings in the public theatre, as a large part of the orchestra is mostly engaged by the ruling city, and sometimes the whole part has indeed been thus engaged, so that not even one of the Paduan musicians has had a place there, as happened last year. This being a publicly known fact, it does not need to be proven. Having removed the two main foundations to the exercise of the musicians’ trade, the legitimate and most evident consequence deduced is that the tax has fallen on their salaries, intangible by nature. This was said in the reasons submitted to His Excellency the Captain by the musicians, and here for greater information of the Presidency it is added that it should not be believed that the other uncertain earnings of Padua are sufficient as a basis for imposing tax, because Tartini is ready to swear that the uncertain earnings of Padua have never been sufficient to him to pay his bills at the end of the year, and Signor Giovanni Battista Priuli is quite ready to transfer to anyone with a legal contract all his uncertain earnings for just ten ducats. Likewise, it should not be believed that the teaching of the