TARTINI (Signior), a very celebrated Italian composer and performer on the violin, was born at Pirano in Istria in 1692; where, having in his early youth manifested an attachment to an unworthy object, his father shut him up: it was during this confinement, that, amusing himself with musical instruments, he accidentally discovered the seeds of his musical talents. He was engaged in 1722 as a performer in the church of St Anthony at Padua, in which capacity he officiated as long as he lived; and wrote several treatises on music. A singular anecdote is re-
lated of him, which serves to show to what a degree his imagination was animated by a genius for composition. He dreamed one night, in 1713, that he had made a compact with the devil, who promised to be at his service on all occasions; and in the course of their acquaintance presented his new friend with his violin to try what kind of a musician he was. To his great astonishment, he heard the devil play a solo so exquisitely beautiful, that he awoke in a transport, and, seizing his fiddle, endeavoured in vain to express what he thought he had just heard: however, he then composed a piece, which is perhaps the best of all his works; and called it The devil's sonata. He died in 1770; and left to the professor Colombo the care of a posthumous work, of which, as Dr Burney relates, though it is chiefly mathematical, the theory of sound makes a considerable part.