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one for the late king of Portugal, and the other for himself: this last he per- mitted me to transcribe at Bologna, and Signor Santarelli favoured me with an- other copy from the archives of the Pope's chapel: upon collating these two copies, I find them to agree pretty exactly, except in the first verse. I have seen several spurious copies of this composition in the possession of different persons, in which the melody of the soprano, or up- per part, was tolerably correct, but the other parts differed very much; and this inclined me to suppose the upper part to have been written from memory, which, being so often repeated to different words in the performance, would not be difficult to do, and the other parts to have been made to it by some modern contrapuntist afterwards.
Before I quit a subject so interesting to the lovers of church music, I shall add the following anecdote, with which I was likewise furnished by Signor Santarelli.
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