Marianna's Weekly Conversazione: An Account by an Italian Visitor to Vienna in 1793

For a discussion of the inscription go to Michael Lorenz's blog. 

Marchese Cesare Lucchesini, a traveler and diplomat, visited Vienna from late December 1792 to late April 1793, and recorded his experiences in letters published in 1886. In a letter of 5 January 1793 Lucchesini described one of the musical salons that Marianna Martines, the Viennese keyboard player, singer, and composer, gave regularly on Saturday evenings. This document is unknown to Martines scholars: 

                                                                            5 gennaio [1793]. Sabato

Alle ore 7 andammo a casa Martinez, dove nel sabato si fa sempre un'accademia di musica. In questa casa abitava il celebre Pietro Metastasio, il quale, morendo, lasciò erede del suo questa famiglia, dopo avere con essa vissuto 53 anni. Di essa rimangono ora due vecchie sorelle ed un fratello. Una delle due sorelle ha studiato con molto profitto la musica, ed è per lei principalmente che si fanno queste accademie. Ad esse intervengono molte donne, ed alle volte vi ho contato circa trenta fra dame e cittadine. Li strumenti consistono in un solo, vecchio e cattivo cembalo, col quale la sig. Martinez accompagna le persone che vogliono cantare, e che dicesi che faccia con abilità. Talvolta ella pure vuol cantare; ma lo fa con una voce stridula e tremante, che palesa l'età sua, non più atta a questo.

At 7 o' clock we went to the Martinez residence, where on Saturday a musical academy is always held. In this house lived the famous Pietro Metastasio, who at his death designated this family as his heirs, after having lived with them for 53 years. Of the family there now remain two old sisters and one brother. One of the sisters has studied music most profitably, and it is mainly for her that these academies are organized. Many women attend them, and at times I counted about thirty ladies and townswomen. The instruments consist of a single, old, and unpleasant harpsichord, with which Signora Martinez accompanies the persons who wish to sing, and it is said that she does so with skill.  Sometimes she also wishes to sing; but she does so with a shrill and wobbly voice that betrays her age, no longer suited to this.

From "Il Marchese Cesare Lucchesini, viaggiatore e diplomatico," La Rassegna nazionale 30 (1886) pp. 458–81 (465). Born 4 May 1744, Marianna was 48 years old in January 1793. The apartment she occupied was no longer the one she and her family had shared with Metastasio until his death in 1782; see Irving Godt, Marianna Martines: A Woman Composer in the Vienna of Mozart and Haydn, edited with contributions by John A. Rice (University of Rochester Press, 2010), p. 193.