The Library of the Conservatorio di Musica ‘G. Tartini’ in Trieste holds some objects, editions and manuscripts connected with this Piranese composer. Some of these are known as ‘Tartini relics’ because they are believed to have been owned by Tartini himself. They include some elements of a violin fittings [fitting 1, fitting 2, fitting 3, fitting 4, fitting 5, fitting 6], two bows [Pernambuco 1, Pernambuco 2, Pernambuco 3, Serpente 1,  Serpente 2, Serpente 3], a violin case [case 1, case 2] with the fabric bearing the initials ‘GT’, a small portrait [front, back] of Tartini, a wig and a cross. With them is the composer’s death mask [mask 1, mask 2, mask 3 (conserved in the same coloured carton as the wig) and a few manuscripts and prints that may have belonged to Tartini but may have been purchased later. They raise the question: how may these objects have ended up in the Library of a Conservatory which was founded in 1953, and how can they be proved authentic more than two centuries after the composer’s death. Luckily, the owners were already concerned whether the relics were actually Tartini’s property in the early nineteenth century. Confirmation of their authenticity would contribute to a high valuation of the materials, on one hand, and allow them to be featured at important music exhibitions on the other. These needs spurred the identification of documents that could prove this authenticity, which are conserved along with the relics in the Library of the Trieste Conservatory. They allow us to understand the paths (not always linear) that the materials travelled until the present. On 18 February 1770, Giuseppe Tartini died. The violinist Giulio Meneghini (1741-1824) had been a student of Tartini’s and had succeeded him as the conductor of the S. Antonio di Padova Basilica’s musicians. A testimony from 1807 attests that Meneghini at that time owned ‘a famous violin which once belonged to Tartini, and used by him, as well as several autograph sonatas, and his likewise original mask’. (Antonio Neumayr, Illustrazione del Prato della Valle ossia della piazza delle statue di Padova, Padova 1807).

Almost a century later the mask resurfaced among the Trieste relics, donated anonymously to one of the music schools that preceded the Conservatory’s foundation. In 1903, following the foundation of the ‘G. Tartini’ Music Lyceum, Ettore Rampini donated the Tartini relics that he had conserved for years. Together with the relics, Rampini provided papers describing the provenance of the relics from Tartini’s beloved disciple until the beginning of the twentieth century.

The most important of these documents is a report [TSA1550020 (originale), 1B (trascrizione in doc e in pdf)] by Ettore Rampini to a journalist named De Luppi in Venice, for an article [RML0011834 (originale), 2B (trascrizione in doc e in pdf)] that appeared on the L’Adriatico newspaper on 3 September 1902. From Rampini’s sometimes engaging report emerges a story of the ‘relics’ which is also a story of a series of difficult financial situations, and the responses of successive owners. The document illuminates the close relationship between Tartini and the Meneghini family, who commissioned the wax mask ‘for an exorbitant price’.

Chronological list of the events:

• 1770: 26 February. Following Giuseppe Tartini’s death in Padua, the Meneghini family commissions the wax death mask of his face.

• 1807: Giulio Meneghini owns the death mask.

• Post 1807 – ante 1824: the mask, wig and other objects are given by Giulio Meneghini to Mr Carnio in Padua as a guarantee for a debt of about 5000 lire.

• 1881: January–April. Following Carnio’s death, his wife (who was very old and probably in need of money) goes to Luthier Carlo Meneguzzi’s shop in Padua to sell a violin that belonged to Tartini and its fabric case, which bore the initials GT. The instrument, which is also marked ‘with the initials G O T on the button’, was built by the luthier Antonio Bagatella who, as is well known, worked in close cooperation with the composer ‘for about thirty years’. Rampini (director of the wax factory of Giuseppe Taboga in Padua), who was very fond of violin making, used to pay frequent visits to Meneguzzi’s shop, and witnesses the event. The Luthier purchases the violin and has it examined by two violinists, Barbiroli and Cunegotto, who attest its authenticity. Meneguzzi asks the widow and is able to purchase other articles from Tartini’s collection (‘one death mask, some bows, pictures, libretti and other objects’), but in a short while he is forced in turn - by bad health and economical difficulties - to sell the articles to Rampini.

• 1881: May–October. Rampini lends the articles to the 1881 Musical Exhibition in Milan.

• 1888: the materials are on exhibit in Bologna at the International Music Exhibition.

• 1896: Rampini, who had moved from Padua to his hometown of San Michele del Quarto (now part of Quarto d’Altino, near Venice), cannot escape the bad economic situation and sells the Antonio Bagatella violin to the daughter of Antonio Masi of Spresiano (Treviso), through Professor Lancerotto and his subordinate Antonio Innocente. He keeps all the other articles.

• 1902: In the hope that they might be sold, Rampini gives the remaining objects to the office of Professor Luigi Fulici, Rio Terà Canal n. 3062/a in the district of Dorsoduro in Venice: the wax mask, ‘two of his bows, a violin cover, a bridge and tailpiece with its endpin, which were on Tartini’s violin, a tempera portrait, a manuscript and a printed booklet’, but they remain unsold.

• 1902: August–September. Rampini gives Mr De Luppi (journalist at the L’Adriatico newspaper) a declaration that the relics are authentic, witnessed by the friend P.A. Meneghini, declared in a letter of 18 August 1902 [TSA1546643 (originale), 3B (trascrizione in doc e in pdf)].

• 1902: 3 September. An article [RML0011834 (originale), 2B (trascrizione in doc e in pdf)] about the Tartini relics appears on the front page of L’Adriatico, Giornale del Mattino.

• c1903: Ettore Rampini donates the series of ‘relics and mementos of Giuseppe Tartini’ to the newly founded Liceo Musicale ‘G. Tartini’, directed by Filippo Manara. The Liceo Musicale, which was renamed Conservatorio Musicale ‘G. Tartini’ in 1908, merged with the Conservatorio Musicale ‘G. Verdi’ in 1932 under the name Ateneo Musicale Triestino, and became the present institution (Conservatorio di Musica ‘G. Tartini’) only in 1953.12 At the time of its foundation in 1903 numerous donations enriched the new institution; a bust by sculptor Vittorio Covacich [12] donated by the teaching staff, and the transcribed score of four concerts [TSA1546484, TSA1546493, TSA1546476, TSA1546458] donated by the Presidency of the Veneranda Arca del Santo di Padova, but surely the most precious and meaningful gift was the one from ‘Mr. Ettore Rampini of S. Michele del Quarto’. The ‘relics and mementos’ are still conserved in the Conservatory Library and are accurately described in a Specification [TSA1546615 (originale), 4B (trascrizione in doc e in pdf)] which was drawn up at the time of their donation.

* The present article by Paolo Da Col was published in a wider form in English with the title The Tartini Violin Relics. 1. History of the Tartini Violin Relics, “The Galpin Society Journal”, 64, 2011, pp. 248-254 (), and in Italian with the title “Un giorno entrò in bottega una vecchia...” Percorsi e vicende dei cimeli tartiniani del Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Tartini” di Trieste, in «Atti e Memorie della Società Istriana di Archeologia e Storia Patria», Nuova Serie, LXV (2017), pp. 169 – 185.