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First edition. A Jesuit professor at Lyons and later Paris, Menestrier developed ‘a special interest in the history and organization of public festivals and ceremonies’. He devised ballets for the visit of Louis XIV to Lyons in 1658 and published a series of works on the subject. ‘The four works by Menestrier that have particular relevance to music are among the earliest publications to combine what was, for the time, a thorough study of the history and aesthetics of theatrical performance with practical and detailed descriptions of actual events (chiefly ballet and opera in France and Italy)’ (Grove online).

Here Menestrier deals among other matters with music among the Greeks, Hebrews and Chinese, and the arrival of opera in France; many performances are described in great detail, and at the end is a long descriptive catalogue of all the fêtes organised at the court of Savoy since the beginning of the century.

Brunet, II, 1622.

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