Life
An extremely rare survival, this announcement of one of Chladni's numerous public lectures would normally have been thrown away at the time of the lecture.
Chladni was born and raised in Wittenberg, Germany. Driven to become an academic lawyer by his tyrannical father, he struck out after his father's death on his own eccentric and utterly original path.
From 1783-1792, after obtaining law and philosophy degrees from the University of Liepzig, Chladni gave lectures at the University of Wittenberg, first on legal subjects, geometry, and mathematical geography, and then from his field of research, acoustics.
From 1791 until the end of his life, Chladni lived an itinerate lifestyle, moving from place to place throughout Western Europe. He conducted lecture, performance, and exhibition tours, usually lasting several months, to present his work in different cities, each time returning for a short period to Wittenberg. Throughout this time he had wide-ranging encounters with contemporary scholars, artists, and intellectuals, including Goethe, Schiller, and many others.