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

452 167. Tartini to G.B. Martini By means of our worthiest Padre Paolucci I am sending Your Reverence a package of my recently printed books. What they deal with, you shall see at your leisure, but choose for yourself two of them, bound in the rustic fashion, which were already destined for Your Reverence, and were to reach you by means of the Most Illustrious Signor Leopoldo Caldani, who kindly took an interest in me. But since Padre Paolucci has come here and informed me of your solicitous concern to receive them quickly, I have availed myself more than gladly of his attentions. The other unbound ones which remain in your hands, will be disposed of by the Most Illustrious Caldani, and you will receive thereof the necessary notice. Meanwhile, I beg Your Reverence to appreciate not my work, but my heart, which lacks nothing with regard to the veneration and love which I have, and am bound to have, for Your Reverence. Regarding these two short works, I would have to write too much to Your Reverence if I could explain the matter on paper. I have confided everything orally to our most benevolent Padre Paolucci. And it is unfortunately true that my case requires infinite caution both with regard to music professors, and with regard to the professors of the physical-mathematical sciences. Omnia cum tempore ; but in the meantime I need to avoid getting distracted by music if I have to clash fiercely with physicians and mathematicians, who with too much cockiness want to publicly decide on the musical system and claim to lay down the law in our profession. This has by now become a matter of shame for us Italians and should not be ignored. Some in one way, others in another, must rise up and re-establish our honour. Once this is established, it will take us professors very little to come to an agreement, as the differences in opinion substantially amount to one point of order: it lies in the clear explanation of those terms which, when understood, will make it impossible for a different opinion to remain. We can discuss this privately and frankly among ourselves until the right time comes to declare ourselves publicly in agreement. This is my principle in the present circumstances, and it is a principle of caution and never of any fear or anything else. If, by way of caution, a better principle is suggested to me, I shall embrace it with full readiness and compliance; and in the meantime, submitting to you my most cordial and most humble regards, I remain, Your Reverence’s most humble, devoted and obliged servant Giuseppe Tartini Padua, 26 March 1767