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In the eighteenth century the most important composer in Europe of concertos for two violins was undoubtedly Vivaldi, who left twenty-eight works written almost throughout the duration of his creative career: this substantial corpus - exceptional in its quantity and variety when compared, for example, with the output of Telemann (of whom fewer than ten concertos of this kind have survived) or J. S. Bach (only one) - offers numerous subjects for analysis, one of which is performance practice. During the first decade of the eighteenth century, or for slightly longer, Vivaldi conceived the functional role of the solo parts in a concerto for two violins as a 'reduced version' of the concertino of a concerto grosso lacking a separate bass part: one of these two solo parts was drawn from the ranks of the first violins, the other from the second violins. Subsequently, but not later than the end of the second decade, Vivaldi switched to regarding the concerto for two violins as an 'augmented version' of the solo concerto, drawing both solo players from the ranks of the first violins. The compositional impetus for a concerto with two solo violins was twofold. On the one hand, it had a pedagogical function: by taking the part of the second solo violin, a pupil could wrestle with a solo piece without becoming too 'exposed'. On the other hand, it represented a genuine competition: a challenge to the technical and musical abilities of both contenders. By examining archival documents and analysing Vivaldi's scores, the article seeks to address questions connected with the performance of thcsc works: the orchestral forces required by Vivaldi at the Ospedale della Pietà (for his concertos in general and his 'double' violin concertos in particular), the instruments employed for the basso continuo, and the different spatial layouts of the two soloists and the orchestra that the composer himself preferred (a subject never explored before). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]