He would be in real trouble when things got warm and
dusty. And simply going upstairs too fast would bring on an attack
of coughing and wheezing. His parents had regularly been reduced
to prayer by one of his many fevers, sometimes so severe he could
hardly draw breath. The doctor, called on such occasions, could do
nothing more than write out his bill.
For whole days and nights after another such attack the
child would be confined to bed, too weak even to lift a glass of
water to his lips. As he grew older the bouts of fever gradually
became less frequent. Bit by bit his health improved, although he
remained slight in stature. The older he got, the fitter he became.
He still could not play football, but the little Antonio did not very
much mind. He had never seen the sense in kicking a ball around
the square again and again. Even games of tag had no attraction
for him, nor when the local boys with bloodcurdling shrieks chased
each other round the fountain, getting soaked in re-enactment of
battles against the savage Turks. He preferred to sit indoors with
his father. There was always something to do inside. The
neighbours would come to the house to be shaved, and for those
who could afford it his father would sometimes make a wig. The
latest gossip would be exchanged and world news discussed.
But there came a point when Giambattista began to spend
more and more time copying music and rehearsing various pieces.
He was being invited increasingly to play in theatre orchestras, and
when Antonio was just seven his father was appointed violinist to
the San Marco basilica orchestra. Fewer and fewer men came along
for their daily shave. Giambattista had better things to do. Antonio
soon learned to read and write, and as he worked his father taught
the boy how to read music too. It wasn’t long before little Vivaldi
began to imitate his father. He was allowed to draw some lines to
form a stave on the back of an old piece of paper and invent his
own tunes. For his eighth birthday his parents gave Antonio a
violin, made for him with endless patience by his father. And this
was the moment when Antonio discovered his true love. To his
classmates he was by now nothing but a boring idiot and they soon
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