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

474 My income I shall call credit; my expenses debt, and I shall distinguish the two items as follows. Income, that is to say credit. This began after my return from Prague to Padua: it was 1726. Then my salary at the Santo was of 150 current ducats, and I had not started to teach. In the following year of 1727 I needed to pledge the above-mentioned coin in order to live, as when I returned from Prague I no longer had the money left over from there, having given it to my family in Piran, as can be testified by Dottor Pietro, my living brother, who received it. In the same year of 1721 my school began, and it still is functioning, and this has been my main source of income. The highest number of annual students amounted to ten, the smallest to two from 1727 to the present 1767, which means for forty years. Among these students there has always been one or two done for charity (sometimes three), as indeed at present there are two of them. Therefore, if one takes a number in the middle between the two and the ten of those who paid the monthly salary, after excluding the charitable cases, one cannot but assign the number of 5 at two zecchini a month for ten months a year, due to the autumn holidays. These, then, are one hundred zecchini a year for 40 years: a total of 4,000 zecchini . Therefore this is about 14,600 in current ducats. Extra earnings from music outside the church (always ruling out the theatres) cannot be guaranteed; but from one year to the next no more than 30 zecchini a year can be assigned, since I have refused many outside engagements in order to fulfil my duty with the students. Furthermore, this income refers to roughly 14 years, that is to say from 1727 until 1741, because after my injured arm (which happened in 1740 in Bergamo) I no longer accepted outside music, if not two ordinations in Venice, a service at the Salute , and another one which I believe was for Doge Pisani, but I do not remember them well. So, 30 zecchini a year for 14 years comes to 420 zecchini , so that makes about 1,540 in current ducats. The extra earnings of Padua are quite trifling, and this is known publicly. 20 ducats per year have been assigned; this is in excess, but let us say so. In 40 years this amounts to about 800 current ducats. Many extra earnings I have had from noble travellers here in Padua, but they can only be assigned at discretion, and just from the year 1727 to about 1750, due to the increased disability of my arm. Therefore, if we assign for 23 years an annual profit of about 16 zecchini , this amounts to 368 zecchini , which is about 1,350 current ducats. From the editions of two musical works I earned 500 current ducats, the salary from the Santo of 150 ducats from 1727 until 1733, making a total of 900 ducats, from 1733 to the present 1767 of 170 ducats, making a total of 5,780 ducats.