MUSICAL SUGGESTIONS

27 - The venetian hospitals

The pedagogical activity of Tartini is certified in the Lagoon, where he used to educate some maidens in Venetian hospices (Ospedali).

Similar welfare institutions, aimed at the sick, elderly, orphans and foundlings, were established in Venice since the 14th century. There were four main “Ospedali”: Derelitti (Ospedaletto), Incurabili, Mendicanti and Pietà. In these institutions, musical instruction aimed at young girls, the so-called “choir daughters”, played a prominent part. 

The choirs of the hospices, divided into a vocal and an instrumental formation, reached the size of between forty and over seventy elements. While many “choir daughters” had anonymous careers, others achieved international fame, guaranteed by the high-level instruction they received from musicians of the calibre of Vivaldi, Porpora, Hasse, Jommelli, Galuppi and Traetta. 

Tartini, although not employed as a Maestro, was in contact with the hospices. He dedicated at least five violin concertos to three virtuosos of the “Ospedale della Pietà”: Anna Maria, Chiaretta and Luisa. The Piranese also gave music lessons to the violinists Giacomina Stromba of the Incurabili and Antonia Cubli of the Mendicanti.

From the latter the young Maddalena Lombardini obtained the permission to attend the Tartini's School in Padua (1760, 1764), where she received the training opening up her extraordinary international career as a virtuoso and composer. Tartini addressed her the famous letter on the “technique of the bow”.