[GASTRONOMY]: BRILLAT-SAVARIN JEAN ANTHELME (1755-1826)

[GASTRONOMY]: BRILLAT-SAVARIN JEAN ANTHELME (1755-1826) French lawyer and politician who gained fame as a gastronome and epicure following his publication of The Physiology of Taste (1825). A rare D.S., Brillat-Savarin, one page, 8vo, Rue des Filles-St-Thomas, Paris, 23rd November 1819, in French. The partially printed document, completed entirely in Brillat-Savarin's hand is entitled Cercle d'Harmonie Trancendante ('Circle of Transcendent Harmony') and takes the form of an invitation and programme to a Journee musicale en l'honneur de Madame Sainte Cecile (Translation: 'Musical day in honour of Madame Saint Cecilia') addressed to Colonel Lacombe and stating that guests should assemble on Sunday 28th at precisely 10 o'clock in the morning. Brillat-Savarain details the programme of the day, with seven musical events ('Ouverturen hymne a l'harmonie…..Musique officielle inedite rares debuts…..libation chinoise confabulation…..Musique a volonte….libation finale' etc.) taking place at various times of the day and night, beginning at 10.30am and ending at 11pm. With integral address leaf. Some foxing, largely to the edges, otherwise VG Brillat-Savarin, who fled the Reign of Terror and, after travelling to Switzerland and Holland, taught music in America, organised musical days for the Cercle d'Harmonie Trancendante which he had founded after his return to Paris in 1796. Such events appealed to not only the ear, but the palate and throat, and in his Physiologie du Gout Brillat-Savarin wrote 'The artists who circulate in our salons drink with as much discretion as sagacity; but what they have lost on one side, they regain on the other; and if they are no longer drunk, they are gluttonous to the third heaven, so much so that it is assured that at the Circle of Transcendent Harmony, the celebration of the feast of Saint Cecilia sometimes lasted more than twenty-four hours'.