Literature

One of the most complete books on the ballet is by the Jesuit, Claude François Menestrier, Des ballets anciens et modernes, 12mo (1682). He was the inventor of a ballet for Louis XIV. in 1658; and in his book he analyses about fifty of the early Italian and French ballets. See also Noverre, Lettres sur la danse (1760; new ed. 1804); Castel-Blaze, La Danse et les ballets (1832), and Les Origines de l'opéra (1869).