THE PART played by Antonio Vivaldi at the beginning of the 18th century in the creation of the larger instrumental formsthe symphony and the concerto-is coming to be appraised with some degree of exactness. We propose to examine here that part of his career which had the greatest influence upon his symphonic genius: those years, stretching from 1704 to i74o, spent at La Pietas in Venice, or, more exactly, at the Seminario musicale dell' Ospitale della PietaL 1 (Musical Seminary of the Hospital of Mercy). We know, if only from the accounts of travellers, what part in the development of music in Venice, during the i7th and i8th centuries, was played by the four famous Ospitali of I Mendicanti (The Beggars), La Pietti (Mercy), Gi' Incurabili (The Incurables), and L'Ospedaletto (The Little Hospital). Like the conservatories of Naples and Palermo2 (is it necessary to recall that a conservatory referred originally to just a place of refuge?), these were, from the time of their foundation, charitable institutions intended for the sick or for foundling children. Later, Scuole (schools) were added to them, in which the teaching of music, in time, became the chief object. This was true to such an extent that, about I700, you scarcely spoke any more of the four religious houses, but rather of their Scuole, which seemed to absorb the best of their efforts. Thus they became an integral part of the never-ending concert of which life in Venice consisted during an epoch when the noble houses-the Marcelli, the Mocenighi, the Manin, the Dandolo, the Venieri-were continually wrangling over the merits of their respective virtuosi, when the churches were resounding with splendid polyphonies (it came to a point where there were six orchestras making responses from the galleries of St. Mark's), when you could count never