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

473 DOCUMENTS I do not want anything else. It being a private settlement, it is based on the required twelfth, which deducted from my actual assets of roughly 7,850 ducats, becomes a capital of roughly 650 ducats. On my intention of coming to a settlement under another form than that of father, but with the equivalent capital of the twelfth, it is certain that in this process no interest enters into it, whether the interest is at 4 per cent or as a life annuity at 8 per cent. On what grounds then is the proposition of an interest of 50 introduced, which involves double the real capital of the twelfth, when I propose to pay the real capital of the twelfth? There can be a doubt about the truthfulness of my assets; but having removed this, and decided that it is true, can there be a doubt over the real capital of the twelfth? If it is possible, may the foundation [tear in the paper] of the contradictory position be explained to me. Given these two questions of mine, to which the opposing party will never give a sound conclusive answer; and it being a settlement, in which nothing but equity takes place, I ask separately, and confidentially between Your Excellency and myself, what according to your judgement is the equitable solution that is appropriate in the present case; and I ask Your Excellency to have the goodness to write it to me with the usual sincerity of your excellent heart. Facts that prove the reality of the assets and the falsity of the supposition that I am a wealthy man. In the year 1727, for living needs, I pledged with Signor Domenico Scala, for 13 zecchini , a coin of 20 ongari with the intermediation of Signor Dottor Don Biagio Saetta, now Monsignor Saetta living in Rome: a witness worthy of trust. Hence in 1727 I had no money. In the year 1752 I then took out a loan from the Dimesse Sisters of Padua: 1,550 current ducats to save the family house of my relatives in Piran; and this by legal means. Hence in 1752 I had no money. It was invested in the fields and in the country house. In the last year 1766, in December, I paid 2,400 current ducats to the Dimesse Sisters as capital, and interest due, obtained from Monsignor Fantini (then in Padua) with the mortgage of the fields which were once his, and from the town house bought by me in the year 1751, for the purchase of which, having no more money, I was forced in 1752 to take on a loan for the above-mentioned need. That from then on until now I have not been able to put together a noteworthy sum of money, the evidence is clear in what happened in December, it being more than evident that I would not have been so mad as to mortgage the fields and the houses for 2,400 ducats with the condition of usufruct during my life and that of my wife, if I had had the actual money. This has happened through legal means, therefore the evidence is certain, which demonstrates with facts the falsity and foolishness of the supposition that I am a wealthy man. But given this occasion, whether for curiosity or for need, here follows a dissection of my current wealth analysed from the beginning.