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Show 20 THE CODE OF TERPSICHORE. these amusements, and seemed to transfer them to the French. Catherine de Medicis made them the chief ornaments of her court. Baltaravim, a very successful director and composer, greatly advanced their progress, and did with respect to ballets, what Jodelle had already done with regard to tragedy. To Triffino, and to these two ingenious men, we are indebted for our theatres, tragedies, and ballets. The encouragement which histrionic diversions received from Louis XIV., contributed in a powerful manner to their cultivation. This gay and liberal monarch ruling a nation ever devoted to pleasure, was particularly partial to ballets : he introduced them in all his f£tes, and the gardens of Versailles have been the scene of many a spectacle of this kind, exhibited in a style of unprecedented splendour and magnificence. The Chevalier Servandoni, a famous architect and perspective painter, offered to the public, on various theatres, a multiplicity of pieces, wherein music, pantomime and machinery were agreeably combined. This Florentine must be considered as one of the chief promoters of theatrical ballets, " Ou tous les arts enchantent tous les sens*." BERNARD. Hence arose that scenic grandeur which the talents of successive artists, and especially those of the present age, have at length brought to so high a point of perfection. The Parisian dancers established the real method of attaining a graceful and dignified execution; and the French school of dancing acquired a pre-eminence over all Europe, equal to that of the Italian school of music. A pre-eminence which both nations have ever since preserved. * Where every art enchanteth every sense. |