La serva padrona
It was sparked by the reaction of literary Paris to a performance of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's short intermezzo "La serva padrona" at the Académie royale de musique in Paris on 1 August 1752. "La serva padrona" was performed by an itinerant Italian troupe of comic actors, known as "buffoni" ("bouffons" in French, hence the name of the quarrel). In the controversy that followed, critics such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Melchior Grimm, along with other writers associated with the "Encyclopédie", praised Italian opera buffa. They attacked French lyric tragedy, a style originated by Jean-Baptiste Lully and promoted by such French composers as Jean-Philippe Rameau.