Madame,
Since the beginning of this year, this City of ours has admired in the most highly prized Person of Sgr Amadeo Volfango Mozart, Your Son, a prodigy, it may be said, of nature in Music, inasmuch as Art could not yet have performed her Office if she had not taken account of his tender age. I have certainly been among his admirers, even though, however much pleasure Music may invariably have afforded me and however much I may have heard on my travels, I cannot hope to be an infallible judge of it; but I am certainly not mistaken in the case of so rare and prodigious a Youth, and I have conceived such a regard for him that I have had him painted from life ¹¹ See letter 152[Close] with the inscription copied from the end of the cantata - which he will be pleased to read. This sweet likeness is a comfort to me, and it also serves as a stimulus to take up his Music from time to time, so far as my public and private preoccupations allow me, although I have not lost track of Sgr Amadeo and Sgr Leopoldo, his most amiable Father, having with pleasure received news of them from Mantua, Milan and most recently from Florence, reporting universal applause, as we shall soon hear from Rome, where I have already directed them to the most illustrious people. I cannot but recall, Madame, the pleasure you felt on taking him at an even more tender age to the leading Cities in Europe, together with your astonishing Daughter, who was the object of universal admiration, as he himself is at present. I can only repeat the esteem that I feel for the one as for the other and, in consequence, how much I prize their Parents who with such careful education have cultivated such rare talents, talents which, having given you such lively pleasure, shall yet offer the world cause for universal admiration. Please accept these sentiments, which are both of good intentions and true esteem, since while expressing them I take this opportunity to fulfil a commitment to let your Son have two pieces of Music ²² Unidentified[Close] which he saw while he was staying with me and which I have had copied in order to please him, so that he may make full use of them. You will receive these from the merchant Sgr Soldini, who assures me that he will deliver them safely to you. I shall be grateful if you will acknowledge them at your convenience. I may conclude by wishing you and your most esteemed Family every happiness, while signing myself, with sincere and devoted esteem, Madame
Verona 22 April 1770
Your Most Devoted and Humble Servant
Pietro Lugiati