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guitar and violin, not on the shoulder,
but hanging down. Paesiello had intro-
duced some of his music into his comic
opera, which was now in run. Signor
Piccini promised to procure me some of
these wild national melodies.
Another sort is peculiar to Puglia,
with which the people are set a dancing
and sweating, who either have, or would
be thought to have been bitten by the ta-
rantula. Of this music Dr. Cirillo pro-
cured me a specimen. Signor Serrao, in
a dissertation on the subject, and Dr. Ci-
rillo, who has made several experiments,
in order to determine the fact, are both
of opinion that the whole is an imposi-
tion, practised by the people of Apulia,
to gain money: that not only the cure
but the malady itself is a fraud. Dr. Ci-
rillo assured me that he had never been
able to provoke the tarantula either to
bite himself or others upon whom he
had repeatedly tried the experiment*.
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