Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770) was an Italian composer and violinist of the baroque period. Tartini was born on the 8th April 1692 in Pirano, a town on the peninsula of Istria in the Republic of Venice (now Piran, Slovenia). It appears that Tartini's parents intended that he should become a Franciscan priest, and in this way he received his basic musical training. He went on to study law at the University of Padua, where he became very good at fencing.