Jean-Baptiste Massip (1676 in

Montauban Montauban (, ; oc, Montalban ) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department, region of Occitania, Southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies north of Toulouse. Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, ...

– 1751 Montauban) was an 18th-century French lawyer, poet, playwright and librettist. After completing his studies, Massip obtained a law degree and devoted himself to the bar. A lawyer by the Parlement, Massip wrote a large number of elegant and delicate French and Gascon songs before heading to Paris where he was able to conciliate the esteem of the chancelier de Pontchartrain who appointed him his gentleman, gave him a position of royal censor, with pension, and bequeathed him a pension of five hundred pounds when he died in 1727. The sympathies that had hosted his first poetic productions emboldened him to compose for the stage and so, aged 58, he wrote for the

Académie royale de musique The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be k ...

, ''les Fêtes nouvelles'' (Paris, J.-B. Ballard, 1734, in-4°),

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

with three entrées, with prologue, music by Duplessis le cadet, which was presented with success at the Opéra, 12 July 1734. Later, Massip wrote ''la Coquette démasquée'', five-act comedy in prose for the

Comédie-Italienne Comédie-Italienne or Théâtre-Italien are French names which have been used to refer to Italian-language theatre and opera when performed in France. The earliest recorded visits by Italian players were commedia dell'arte companies employed b ...

and ''la Mort d’Alexandre'', a tragedy. He also authored some ''Poésies fugitives'' and an ''Épître au Roi'' on the illness which threatened

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached ...

's life in

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand ...

. Massip was a member of the literary society founded in Montauban by Le Franc de Pompignan.

Sources

* Émerand Forestié, ''Biographie de Tarn-et-Garonne'', Montauban, 1860, (p. 153-7).

External links

His plays and their presentations
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CÉSAR
{{DEFAULTSORT:Massip, Jean-Baptiste 18th-century French dramatists and playwrights 18th-century French poets 18th-century French male writers French opera librettists 1676 births 1751 deaths