Giuseppe Tartini - Guida

In the Library of the Giuseppe Tartini State Conservatory of Trieste are preserved certain objects, editions and manuscripts relating to the composer from Piran. Of these materials some are known as the “Tartini relics” not only on account of their value and antiquity, but also because their ownership can be traced back to the musician himself. They consist of certain component parts of a violin (1), two bows, a violin case (7) made of cloth bearing the initials G T, a small painting (8) portraying the musician, a wig, and a crucifix (9). Also included is the death mask (10) stored in a decorated cardboard box. The Library also preserves documents that certify the authenticity of the objects, describing their movements from the death of Giuseppe Tartini in Padua (26 February 1770) up until their donation to the Liceo Musicale “G. Tartini” of Trieste at the time of its foundation (1903). When Tartini died, the family of his violin pupil Giulio Meneghini (1741-1824, his successor from 1765 as leader of the instrumentalists at the basilica of S. Antonio in Padua), had a wax death mask made of his face “for an exorbitant price”. A witness in 1807 asserts that Meneghini possessed “a famous violin that had once belonged to Tartini and had been handled by him, as well as various autograph sonatas and the mask of the man, again original” (Antonio Neumayr, Illustrazione del Prato della Valle ). Almost a century later, in 1903, the death mask was to reappear among the Trieste relics donated by an ordinary citizen, Ettore Rampini , to the Liceo Musicale “G. Tartini”, which was founded that year. Rampini himself made a declaration that had been requested by a journalist for an article that appeared in the newspaper L’Adriatico on 3 September 1902. From this (at times intriguing) account, it turns out that the history of these relics is also the history of a series of straitened financial circumstances, in which the various owners relinquished the materials in order to gain some kind of financial benefit. Unfortunately lost in the course of these transactions was the Antonio Bagatella violin, “with the initials G ʘ T marked on the end button”, sold to the daughter of Signor Antonio Masi of Spresiano (Treviso). In 2007, thanks to a generous donation, the “Bruno and Michèle Polli” Centre of Tartini studies was founded at the Conservatory. Over the years this has enabled the library to enrich its collection by acquiring early printed editions and manuscripts of Tartini’s music and treatises, as well as two theoretical texts in the composer’s own hand. The Tartini Relics