As  a  youth  he  was  extremely  fond  of  music  and
fencing — few  could  match  him  with  the  foils.  He
began  to  study  the  violin  seriously  under  Giulio
di  Terni,  a  clever  musician,  who,  in  after  years,
came  and  took  some  lessons  from  his  celebrated
pupil.  An  early  marriage,  contracted  against  the
consent  of  his  parents,  caused  the  young  man  to
fly  and  seek  a  livelihood  far  from  the  parental  eyes.
A  relative,  who  was  an  abbot  at  the  monastery  of
Assisi,  befriended  him,  and  he  laboured  in  that
secluded  spot  to  perfect  his  violin-playing,  taking
part  regularly  in  the  religious  music  of  the  establish-
ment. After  reconciliation  with  his  family  he  went
to  Venice,  in  order  that  he  might  hear  the  eccentric


THE  ITALIAN  SCHOOL  7

Veracini,  the  capo  pazzo^  or  madcap  ;  a  violinist
whose  performances  produced  so  great  an  effect
upon  him  that  it  was  this  said  Veracini  whom  he
saw  in  his  dream,  or  nightmare,  on  awaking  from
which  he  composed  his  clever  Sonata  del  Diavolo,
a  piece  in  which  a  series  of  double-shakes,  and  the
Satanic  laugh  with  which  it  concludes,  are  so  dear
to  lovers  of  descriptive  music.
This  composition,  strange  to  relate,  actually
helped  him  to  the  appointment  of  director  of  the
orchestra  in  the  Church  of  St.  Anthony  at  Padua
in  1721  ;  and  by  the  year  1728  he  had  founded
a  great  violin  school  in  that  celebrated  old  city.
Another  of  his  compositions,  Didorie  Abandonata
(Sonata  X.),  is  quite  as  descriptive.
