by Jean Pougnet
Francesco Maria Veracini , not to be confused with his uncle, Antonio Veracini , also a well-known Florentine violinist and composer, was one of the greatest Italian musicians of the first half of the eighteenth century. (The dates of his birth and death-1685 and 1750-are the same as Bach's.) Torchi, in his ' Rivista musicale italiana ', goes so far as to call him ' the Beethoven of the eighteenth century
Veracini visited England in 1714, and he was in London again during 1735-45—perhaps till his death, the place of which is not certainly known. Burney says that his music was ' too wild and flighty for the English at that time '.