4. Canon.—Tertia pars si placet.
Con - fi - te.. bor ti-biDo - - - - - mi-ne in gen- ti-bu« et no -mi-ne tu - o can - ta bo.
5. Canon.—Ter voce ciemus.
[See Page Image] Nos. 1, 3, 4 of these are copied from the vignettes with which Padre Martini's "Storia Universale" is adorned. [28] He had made Wolfgang a present of his book, and the latter probably set to work at once to find out the knack of writing canons. We can see the ease with which he mastered his task.
At Florence, they fell in with their old London acquaintance Manzuoli, and Wolfgang was rejoiced to hear that there was a probability of his being engaged to sing in his opera at Milan.
In order to incite Manzuoli's ardour, Wolfgang gave him all his songs to sing, including those he had composed in Milan.
At Florence, too, Wolfgang formed a tender friendship with Thomas Linley, a boy of fourteen, the son of an English composer; he was a pupil of the celebrated violin-player Nardini, and played so exquisitely as almost to surpass his teacher. The two boys met at the house of Signora Maddalena Morelli, who was famous as an improvisatrice, under the name of Corilla,[29] and had been crowned as a poetess on the capitol in 1776;[30] during the ROME, 1770—ALLEGRI'S MISERERE. few days that the Mozarts stayed in Florence the boys were inseparable, and performed together or by turns, "more like men than boys." They parted with many tears, and Tommasino, as Linley was called in Italy, brought to Wolfgang, as a parting gift, a poem which Corilla had written for him.
According to Burney,[31] Tommasino and little Mozart were talked of throughout Italy as two geniuses of the greatest promise, and in later life at Vienna, Mozart spoke with warmth of Linley,[32] and the hopes which had been frustrated by his early death.[33]
It was with regret that they left Florence; Leopold Mozart wrote to his wife: "I wish that you could see Florence, its neighbourhood, and the situation of the city; I am sure you would say that it is a place to live and die in." But time pressed, if they were to be in Rome for the carnival.