Dance (Renaissance and Reformation)

Introduction

Dancing was enjoyed and performed by those at all levels of European society for centuries. It was not until the 15th century, however, that names of individual dance teachers and choreographers emerged from the historical record, the same time that dance treatises were being written. Dance was part of major state events, theatrical spectacles, religious festivals, and marriage celebrations as well as more intimate, private celebrations as a means of diversion. Many early studies into Renaissance dance from the first three-quarters of the 20th century were by musicologists, with little insight into the actual dance practices themselves. From the 1970s, however, scholarly research has increasingly focused on the dance and has been combined with reconstructions and performances of documented choreographies. Translations of key treatises opened up the area still further. Dance historians have mostly concentrated on the dance practices of the elite level of society, because this area is from where the overwhelming majority of the documentary source material comes. Contextual studies have expanded our knowledge and understanding of the part dance played in the daily life of society from 1400 to 1650. Such studies often concentrate on a specific court or city, a particular festive event, on how people of the time viewed dancing, or on the intellectual foundations of the theoretical writings on dance. More recently research into the interrelationship between dance and other artistic practices such as painting, literary works, garden design, martial arts, gesture, and the intellectual beliefs of the period has gained prominence. Despite this activity there are still large areas of Renaissance dance practices about which we know very little; for example, specific information on the dance practices from Germanic areas of Europe, biographical information on dance teachers and choreographers, and the dance curriculum and the method of dance instruction at both the humanist schools and in the schools set up to teach dance specifically and often music.

General Overviews

The number of scholarly overviews of Renaissance dance is not large, and most general dance history surveys are superficial or inaccurate when discussing early dance. Kendall 2007, however, provides an excellent introduction to the different dance steps and genres in 15th- and 16th-century Europe. Both Brainard (Dance: Medieval to Early Renaissance) and Sutton (Dance: Late Renaissance and Baroque to 1730: (i) Before 1630) concentrate on the social context of the dance practices in their Grove Music Online contributions and are also useful places to start. More recently, Nevile 2008 is a lengthy, more comprehensive overview of European dance practices, and Salmen 2001 concentrates on the earlier part of the period.

Brainard, Ingrid. “Dance: Medieval to Early Renaissance.” In Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane L. Root.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A good introductory summary of dance to 1550, with an extensive bibliography of earlier scholarship, but nothing cited later than 1998. First published in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1st ed. Vol. 5, edited by Stanley Sadie (London: Grove, 1980), pp. 180–187. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Kendall, G. Yvonne. “Early Renaissance Dance, 1450–1520.” In Performer’s Guide to Renaissance Music. 2d ed. Edited by Jeffery T. Kite-Powell, 377–398. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provides a summary of the genres and dance steps from 15th-century Italy and France and 16th-century Italy, France, Spain, and England. A few sample choreographies are also provided. Excellent starting point for those with little background in the area.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “Dance in Europe 1250–1750.” In Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750. Edited by Jennifer Nevile, 7–64. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comprehensive overview of European dance practices with extensive notes. Covers the different sources that provide information on dance practices, their context, the dance masters and their treatises, the dance notation, dance music and instrumentation, the difference dance genres, the dance performers, and the dance performance spaces.
Find this resource:
Salmen, Walter. “Dances and Dance Music, c. 1300–1530.” In Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages. Edited by Reinhard Strohm and Bonnie J. Blackburn, 162–190. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This essay is particularly useful for its concentration on information about dancing and the context of dance performances from Germany. Also see Germany and the Low Countries.
Find this resource:
Sutton, Julia. “Dance: Late Renaissance and Baroque to 1730: (i) Before 1630.” In Grove Music Online. Edited by Deane L. Root.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A good introductory summary to the social context of dance and dance music. An extensive bibliography of earlier scholarship but nothing cited after 1998. Some conclusions are debatable, such as hypothesis on the development of symmetry in 16th-century dance. First published in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1st ed. Vol. 5, edited by Stanley Sadie (London: Grove, 1980), pp. 187–190, 194–195. Available online by subscription.
Find this resource:
Reference Works

There are two major English-language reference works that include articles on Renaissance dance: the International Encyclopedia of Dance and Grove Music Online. Both have articles written by leading international scholars and include bibliographies of primary and secondary source material. Articles in Grove Music Online often include musical examples.

Cohen, Selma Jean, ed. The International Encyclopedia of Dance. 6 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This encyclopedia includes articles which discuss Renaissance dance from a number of different aspects: dance genres, social and theatrical dance, folk dance, dance masters, dance treatises, dance notation, scenic design, lighting for dance, performances, and costumes. Most of the articles cover a wider time span than just the 15th and 16th centuries.
Find this resource:
Grove Music Online.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Contains short articles on major dance masters, major choreographic genres such as the pavane and galliard, and the musical forms used to accompany dance. Generally the bibliographies are excellent for 20th-century material, but missing the scholarship of the last twenty years. First published as The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie (London: Grove, 1980).
Find this resource:
Journals

Articles on Renaissance dance can be found scattered throughout a number of discipline-specific journals in musicology (Early Music and Studi musicali), literature, theater history, and history (Renaissance Quarterly). The small number of journals devoted to dance history (Dance Research and Dance Chronicle) cover a greater time span than just Renaissance dance, as do the journals of various national early dance associations (Historical Dance and Choreologica). All of the journals cited here are peer-reviewed and publish articles of a high scholarly standard.

Choreologica: Papers on Dance History. 2005–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A new journal of the European Association of Dance Historians. Covers the whole spectrum of dance history.
Find this resource:
Dance Chronicle: Studies in Dance and the Related Arts. 1977–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Covers dance history in broad terms, both geographically and stylistically, and from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Occasional article on Renaissance dance.
Find this resource:
Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research. 1983–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Covers dance studies from medieval period to contemporary. The scholarly dance journal with an international authorship that most often concentrates on pre-1800 dance practices. In 2011 started Dance Research Electronic with extra supplementary material and topics only available online.
Find this resource:
Early Music. 1973–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A beautifully illustrated journal on early music and its performance from the medieval period to the end of the 18th century. Includes articles on early dance with several entire issues devoted to the topic: Vol. 14.1 (1986), Vol. 14.2 (1986), and Vol. 14.3 (1986), edited by Nicolas Kenyon; and Vol. 26.2 (1998), edited by Jennifer Thorp.
Find this resource:
Historical Dance. 1980–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An irregularly published journal of the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society on studies from the 15th century to the 19th century. Articles aimed at performers and academics. Concentrates on performance practice issues. See also Individual Choreographies.
Find this resource:
Renaissance Quarterly. 1967–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The Journal of the Renaissance Society of America publishes on all aspects of Renaissance history and related disciplines, for example, musicology and literature. Does publish the occasional article on early dance and more often on related subjects such as spectacles, festivals, and theatrical performances. Volumes 1–19 (1948–1966) are published as Renaissance News.
Find this resource:
Studi musicali. 1972–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Scholarly articles mostly in Italian but also in English, French, and German. Its main focus is musicology, but key articles on Renaissance dance have been published in this journal.
Find this resource:
Reconstruction and Performance Practice

The most common form of notation used to record dances from 1400 to 1650 was a written description, a system open to ambiguity and lacking any method of notating elements of a dance performance such as arm movements, movements of the body, or even clearly indicating the floor track of a dance. The field of reconstructing past choreographies based on such an incomplete record is a major focus in early dance research (see Daye 1984–1985 and Parsons 2003), and many scholars are both practitioners and researchers, as insights from one activity inform the other as Sparti 2010 demonstrates. Research on how to perform the individual steps (Wilson 2003) and how to attempt to capture in performance the movement style of a particular past dance practice (Wilson 1999) is an ongoing and far from complete activity. Choreographic descriptions, especially for theatrical events for which other source material exists, were often viewed as inherently flawed, compared with the privileged position awarded to iconographic evidence or to literary descriptions by major poets. It is only through the painstaking, detailed process of reconstructing these written choreographic descriptions that such attitudes can be shown to be mistaken, as demonstrated in Nevile 1998.

Daye, Anne. “From Word to Movement (With Original Text of Furioso all’ Italiana and Transcription of the Music by Diana Porteus).” Historical Dance 2.4 (1984–1985): 13–23.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of problems facing someone trying to reconstruct a four-hundred to five-hundred-year-old choreography based only on a written description. Illustrated with a reconstruction of the Italian balletto Il Furioso all’Italiana. Most useful for those new to the field.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “Cavalieri’s Theatrical Ballo ‘O che nuovo miracolo’: A Reconstruction.” Dance Chronicle 21.3 (1998): 353–388.
DOI: 10.1080/01472529808569323Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A reconstruction of one of the few surviving 16th-century theatrical choreographies, which refutes the previous view that the written description was inaccurate and unable to be matched to the music. Includes an analysis of the relationship between the choreographic and musical structure, a correlation of the steps with the music, and a reconstruction of the floor plan. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Parsons, David, ed. On Common Ground 4: Reconstruction and Re-creation in Dance before 1850; Proceedings of the 4th DHDS Conference, March 2003, Cecil Sharp House, London, by Kind Permission of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Ingatestone, UK: Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Includes papers discussing problems in reconstructing social dances from 15th-century Italy and France, 17th-century English country dances, and the antimasque dances from the 1609 Masque of Queens. Also includes a paper on the similarities in reconstructing fencing and dance and how the first art affected dance.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “‘Oh, East Is East, and West Is West, and Never the Twain Shall Meet’: La ricerca teorica e la pratica della danza storica: Strade divergenti?” In La disciplina coreologica in Europa: Problemi e prospettive. Edited by Cecilia Nocilli and Alessandro Pontremoli, 153–167. Rome: Aracne, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Essay by one of the pioneers of early dance research and performance on how her research has influenced her performance and how her teaching has informed her scholarly research and given her fresh insights into the choreographies she studies. Text is in Italian.
Find this resource:
Wilson, David R. “Performing Gresley Dances: The View from the Floor.” Historical Dance 3.6 (1999): 20–22.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An exposition of the specific decisions that had to be made during rehearsals of five recently discovered 15th-century English dances for their first performance in 1999, in terms of the style of movement and how to perform the steps, because no material describing these steps exists. Most useful for undergraduates new to process of dance reconstruction.
Find this resource:
Wilson, David R. The Steps Used in Court Dancing in Fifteenth-Century Italy. 3d rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Wilson, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed, technical publication that presents an analysis of all the steps and their variants in the 15th-century Italian choreographies, how they were combined, their musical duration, and possible ways of performance. All illustrated with examples from 15th-century sources in original Italian and English translations.
Find this resource:
Treatises

Dance treatises form the core source material used by early dance historians. Some treatises have been published in facsimile, while others are available online (see An American Ballroom Companion). Nevile 2008 provides a comprehensive list of dance treatises and translations as there are too many to individually list here. (For other citations of dance treatises, see the citations in Italy, France, England, and Spain.) Some translations of treatises into English are published with the original text facing as in Kendall 1985 and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro 1993, while others are not (see Caroso 1995). The dance treatises often provide information about the expected behavior of men and women at balls, on how to manage their costume (sword, hat, shoes, etc.) while dancing (see Caroso 1995 and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro 1993), or give insights into the changes in the style of dancing during particular decades, as Santucci 2004 does for early 17th-century Italy and Montagut 2000 for England in the 1620s and 1630s, when French influence on English dance was increasing.

An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals ca. 1490–1920. Music Division, Library of Congress.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The sources are held by the Library of Congress. The digital images of the dance treatises held include publications by Thoinot Arbeau (Orchesographie: Et traicte en forme de dialogve, par leqvel tovtes personnes pevvent facilement apprendre and practiquer l’honneste exercice des dance. Lengres: Imprimé par Iehan des Preyz, 1589), Fabritio Caroso (Il ballarino di M. Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta, diuiso in due trattati. In Venetia: Appresso Francesco Ziletti, 1581; Nobiltà di dame del sr. Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta, libro, altra volta, chiamato Il ballarino. In Venetia, Presso il Muschio, 1600), and Cesare Negri (Nvove inventioni di balli. Milan, Bordone, 1604). There are also video clips demonstrating the performance of dance steps and dances.
Find this resource:
Caroso, Fabritio. Courtly Dance of the Renaissance: A New Translation and Edition of the Nobiltà di Dame 1600. Edited and translated by Julia Sutton. New York: Dover, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Original text not included but can be found online from An American Ballroom Companion. Music is transcribed into modern notation and edited by F. Marion Walker. Sutton’s introduction provides useful background information on Caroso’s life, and the different dance genres in the treatise. The dance step names are given in awkward English equivalents, which makes the choreographic descriptions clumsy to read.
Find this resource:
Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro. De practica seu arte tripudii / On the Practice or Art of Dancing. Edited and translated by Barbara Sparti. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Side-by-side translation and original text of the only dated treatise of Guglielmo Ebreo, (1463), with a transcription of the music of the balli. Also included is a translation of additional material from Domini Iohannis Ambrosii pisauriensis de pratica seu arte tripudii (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds it. 476), including Guglielmo’s autobiographical material. Poems are translated by Michael Sullivan.
Find this resource:
Kendall, G. Yvonne. “Le Gratie d’Amore 1602 by Cesare Negri: Translation and Commentary.” DMA diss., Stanford University, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Translation and original text in parallel with reproductions of the illustrations. The music for each dance is given in the original mensural notation and lute tablature and then transcribed into modern notation.
Find this resource:
Montagut, Barthélemy de. Louange de la Danse/In Praise of Dance. Edited by Barbara Ravelhofer. Cambridge, UK: Renaissance Texts from Manuscripts, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Ravelhofer’s extensive introduction (pp. 1–81) includes a discussion of Montagut’s life and professional activities in England from 1620 to 1644, the social and political context in which he and François de Lauze worked, as well as the characteristics of the dance practice described in his plagiarized text.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer, ed. Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
See “List of Dance Treatises, Manuscripts, Moderns Editions, and Translations” (pp. 313–317) for a list of the 15th-, 16th-, and 17th-century dance treatises and manuscripts, details of the facsimile editions, as well as modern editions and translations. The material is divided chronologically and by country.
Find this resource:
Santucci, Ercole. Mastro da ballo, 1614. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Important for the bridge it provides between the 16th-century Italian style and the later 17th-century French baroque style. Santucci clarifies how to perform old steps and describes many new variants of these steps. Barbara Sparti’s introduction and commentary (pp. 1–98) to the facsimile edition sets his treatise and its didactic aim in context, discussing Santucci’s style of steps, his galliard variations, rules of deportment, and the ten recorded choreographies.
Find this resource:
Teachers and Choreographers

It was not until the 15th century that names of individual dance teachers and choreographers appear in the historical record. By the late 16th century the number of known individuals increases dramatically. Yet often not a great deal of information about their lives or activities has survived. Brainard 1979 gives a summary of what is known of the duties of the 15th-century dance masters. Guglielmo Ebreo and Cesare Negri recorded biographical details in their dance treatises, but these two are an exception. Gallo 1983 and Sparti 1993 discuss Guglielmo’s activities at various courts in Italy. The relationship between a dance master and patron is explored in McGee 1988, based on letters written to Lorenzo de’ Medici, which reveal that Giuseppe Ebreo (brother to Guglielmo) was far more well known in mid-15th-century Italy than his one surviving choreography would lead us to believe. Dance masters also worked outside the court setting, establishing schools to teach dance and music. Veronese 1990 discusses such a school set up in 1467 in Florence by Giuseppe Ebreo and a Christian, Francesco. Pontremoli 2009 takes a wider perspective in a discussion of the part that dance teaching played in the curriculum of the humanist schools in the 15th century. The nondancing activities of a 16th-century dance master is the focus of Di Tondo 2011, while McGinnis 2008 is a discussion of Negri’s career that also takes into account the wider social and political context in which the dance masters operated.

Brainard, Ingrid. “The Role of the Dancing Master in Fifteenth-Century Courtly Society.” Fifteenth-Century Studies 2 (1979): 21–44.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An early article on the Italian dance masters, their duties, and a summary of their teaching as outlined in their treatises. This article contains many themes which were further developed by later scholars. Useful introductory summary.
Find this resource:
Di Tondo, Ornella. “Virgilio Bracesco, ‘homo da piacer et spasso,’ e il suo arresto nella Milano cinquecentesca.” In Virtute et arte del danzare: Contributi di storia della danza in onore di Barbara Sparti. Edited by Alessandro Pontremoli, 99–114. Rome: Aracne, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of the arrest and detention of Virgilio Bracesco, a 16th-century Milanese dance master, who also worked at the French and Spanish courts. It has extensive footnotes and the text of the original document in an appendix.
Find this resource:
Gallo, F. Alberto. “L’autobiografia artistica di Giovanni Ambrosio (Guglielmo Ebreo) da Pesaro.” Studi musicali 12.2 (1983): 189–202.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provides the Italian text of Guglielmo’s biographical material as well as a discussion of his activities, including identifying and dating all the events Guglielmo mentions and listing them in chronological order.
Find this resource:
McGee, Timothy J. “Dancing Masters and the Medici Court in the 15th Century.” Studi musicali 17.2 (1988): 201–224.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Provides information on the relationship between Guglielmo Ebreo, his brother Giuseppe, and Lorenzo de’ Medici as well as details about four little-known dance teachers. The original documents are given in an appendix with an English translation in the body of the article.
Find this resource:
McGinnis, Katherine Tucker. “Your Most Humble Subject, Cesare Negri Milanese.” In Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750. Edited by Jennifer Nevile, 211–228. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the autobiographical section of Negri’s treatise in which he chronicles his professional life. McGinnis argues that Negri was involved in careful self-promotion and marketing, and the omission of his time at the French court from this account was due to political considerations and the tensions between Spain and France.
Find this resource:
Pontremoli, Alessandro. “Danza ed educazione del corpo alla corte degli Sforza.” Il Castello di Elsinore 59 (2009): 9–29.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of how dance teaching fitted into the humanist schools. Essay is centered around the activities of Guglielmo Ebreo and Francesco Sforza’s pedagogical aims for his children. Detailed footnotes. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Introduction.” In De practica seu arte tripudii/On the Practice or Art of Dancing. By Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro. Edited and translated by Barbara Sparti, 3–72. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed discussion of Guglielmo’s life. Extensive footnotes. Pages 248–254 provide an English translation of the biographical material recorded by Guglielmo in one version of his treatise.
Find this resource:
Veronese, Alessandra. “Una societas ebraico-cristiano in docendo tripudiare sonare ac cantarei nella Firenze del quattrocento.” In Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Pesaro, 16/18 luglio 1987. Edited by Maurizio Padovan, 51–57. Pisa, Italy: Pacini, 1990.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of a Florentine document from 1467 to establish a school to teach dance and music. The Latin text is given in an appendix (p. 55).
Find this resource:
Genres

Investigations into the formal choreographic structure of the various dance genres recorded in the treatises is a more recent avenue of inquiry in early dance research and one that is far from complete. The French basse dance is the genre most studied, from the early work by musicologists to Wilson 2012, which builds on the work of the author’s predecessors to present an extremely comprehensive account of this genre. In the 16th century one of the most common social dances was the galliard (gagliarda), a partly improvised genre with many step variations. This genre is discussed in Sparti 1995, while Lehner 2000 and Kendall 2011 analyze other genres of social dance found in the treatises of Caroso and Negri. The theatrical spectacles of the 16th century often consisted of choreographies structured around the formation by the dance performers of different geometric patterns. Franko 1993 studies this genre of “geometric dancing” in late 16th-century France, while Greene 2001 considers the same type of dancing in France and England and the relationship of the 16th-century practices to labyrinth dances from classical sources. Just as in music and poetry, choreographers were also interested in recreating classical dance forms for large-scale, theatrical performances, even if their knowledge of ancient Greek dance was slight. McGowan 1984 examines one such attempt in 1548 when the ancient Greek dance genre of the pyrrhic was performed during the entry of Henri II into Lyon. For a discussion of the pavane, see Testi 2011 (cited under Individual Choreographies).

Franko, Mark. Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baroque Body. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In the first two chapters (“Writing Dance 1573,” pp. 15–31; “Ut vox corpus,” pp. 32–51), Franko examines two late-16th-century French geometric danced spectacles. Concludes that it is the 15th-century idea of fantasmata (the concept of stillness that precedes movement) that lies at the heart of this genre of dancing.
Find this resource:
Greene, Thomas M. “Labyrinth Dances in the French and English Renaissance.” Renaissance Quarterly 54.4.2 (2001): 1403–1466.
DOI: 10.2307/1262158Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the labyrinth (or geometric) court ballets in France and England, their poetic texts, and their relationship to labyrinth dances from classical texts and by medieval clerics. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Kendall, G. Yvonne. “Mutanze, Divisions, and Diferencias: Variation Form in Late Renaissance Dance.” In Music, Dance, and Society: Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Memory of Ingrid G. Brainard. Edited by Ann Buckley and Cynthia J. Cyrus, 323–343. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses the musical and choreographic characteristics of dances in variation form: galliard, pavan/pavaniglia, passamezzo, canario, and tordiglione.
Find this resource:
Lehner, Markus. “The Cascarda: An Italian Dance Form of the Sixteenth Century.” In Terpsichore 1450–1900: Proceedings of the International Dance Conference, Ghent, Belgium, 11–18 April 2000. Edited by Barbara Ravelhofer, 11–20. Ghent, Belgium: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
From his analysis of the cascarda choreographies from Caroso’s Il ballarino, Lehner concludes that these dances constitute an independent dance form even though they are similar in their music and step vocabulary to the saltarello section of a balletto.
Find this resource:
McGowan, Margaret M. “A Renaissance War Dance: The Pyrrhic.” Dance Research 3.1 (1984): 29–38.
DOI: 10.2307/1290585Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses the performance of a pyrrhic dance during the entry of Henri II into Lyon in 1548. Examines the classical sources used by creators of this dance and the wider political implications of the performance. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Introduction.” In Ballo della gagliarda. Facs. ed. Edited by Lutio Compasso, 5–27. Freiburg, Germany: Fa-gisis, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The galliard was ubiquitous throughout 16th-century Europe, and this treatise is the first to record the numerous variations and jumps of this dance. The introduction provides background on the choreographic and musical characteristics of the galliard across Italy, France, England, and Spain.
Find this resource:
Wilson, David R. The Basse Dance Handbook: Text and Context. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The most recent and most comprehensive study of the French basse dance and related choreographies from Italian and Spanish sources. Original texts, which discuss the basse dance, are given in transcription with an English translation on the facing page. Also see France.
Find this resource:
Moresca, Momaria, Morris Dancing

Notwithstanding its popularity, the moresca and its related forms was one dance genre that was not recorded in the dance treatises. The characteristics of the moresca choreographies appear to have been very diverse, and so it has proved difficult for scholars to devise a succinct definition of this dance form. Forrest 1999 surveys the situation in England, while Smith 1989 and Murano 1980–1981 discuss the occurrence of danced stylized combat in 16th-century Venice. The theatrical nature of moresche are emphasized in Heartz 1960 and Cummings 2007.

Cummings, Anthony M. “Leo X and Roman Carnival (1521).” Studi musicali 36.2 (2007): 289–341.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
As part of a detailed study of the carnival festivities in early 16th-century Rome, Cummings places the moresca in its cultural context, thereby illuminating its wider significance in European society. Documents describing moresche are translated into English.
Find this resource:
Forrest, John. The History of Morris Dancing, 1458–1750. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses the various theories concerning the origin of morris dancing, the earliest documentary references to the term, the characteristics of the dance event, and the different contexts of morris performances in England and for the related European forms.
Find this resource:
Heartz, Daniel. “Un Divertissement de Palais pour Charles Quint à Binche.” In Les Fêtes de la Renaissance. Vol. 2, Fêtes et cérémonies au temps de Charles Quint IIe: Congrès de l’Association internationale des historiens de la Renaissance (2e section) Bruxelles, Anvers, Gand, Liège, 2–7 Septembre, 1957. Edited by Jean Jacquot, 329–342. Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1960.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Starts with a discussion of the fêtes at Binche in 1549, which included moresche. Concludes that danced stylized combat was one of the essential elements of court fêtes, that the moresca was a very diverse form, that it was performed by courtiers as well as professionals, and that it was often associated with representations of wild men. Not every dance historian agrees with Heartz’s definition.
Find this resource:
Murano, Maria Teresa. “La festa a Venezia e le sue manifestazione rappresentative: Le compagnie della calza e le momarie.” In Storia della cultura veneta. Vol. 3, Part 3, Al Primo Quattrocento al Concilio di Trento. Edited by Girolamo Arnaldi and Gianfranco Folena, 315–341. Vicenza, Italy: Neri Pozza, 1980–1981.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed discussion of the activities of the Venetian compagnie della calza including the performance of momarie. The momaria (mumaria) is defined as a pantomimic representation of a secular character in which the movements of the actors were almost always regulated by the music. More suitable for graduate students.
Find this resource:
Smith, A. William. “Dance in Early Sixteenth-Century Venice: The Mumaria and Some of Its Choreographers.” In Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference of Society of Dance History Scholars, Arizona State University, February 17–19, 1989. Edited by Christena L. Schlund, 126–138. Riverside, CA: Society of Dance History Scholars, 1989.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful introduction to the characteristics of the Venetian mumaria (momaria).
Find this resource:
Individual Choreographies

Ingrid Brainard was one of the first scholars to examine critically the choreographies recorded in the dance treatises and to analyze them as artistic compositions. In Brainard 1990 she examines the choreographies of the 15th-century Italian dance master Domenico da Piacenza, whom Guglielmo Ebreo and Antonio Cornazano both acknowledged as their master. Published studies on individual dances provided a platform for the ongoing dialogue between performers and researchers. Many of these studies can be found in the journal Historical Dance. Sparti 1995 analyzes three 15th-century Italian choreographies and their highly ornamented versions found in the papers of a notary. The author’s study highlights the gap that probably existed between performance of the choreographies and their recorded form in the dance treatises. While Brainard 1990 and Sparti 1995 use the dance treatises as their main source of material, Prina 1996 is a study of the 16th-century dance Nizzarda that is based on a wider range of documents—letters, memoirs, and plays as well as dance treatises—thereby exemplifying the challenge facing the early dance researcher even when studying just one dance. Just as researchers need to consult a wide range of material, so too do they need to consider the music in their analysis of choreographies, because many individually choreographed dances would only fit the music composed or arranged for them and could not be danced to any piece of music (see Music). Testi 2011 focuses on both the choreography and music of the 16th-century Pavana Matthei from Caroso’s 1581 treatise (see An American Ballroom Companion, cited under Treatises).

Brainard, Ingrid. “Pattern, Imagery and Drama in the Choreographic Work of Domenico da Piacenza.” In Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Pesaro, 16/18 luglio 1987. Edited by Maurizio Padovan, 85–96. Pisa, Italy: Pacini, 1990.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of Domenico’s balli in terms of their floor plans, the changing relationships of the dancers to each other, and the dramatic content of the dances. Many of Brainard’s conclusions presented here have been expanded and developed by later scholars.
Find this resource:
Historical Dance. 1980–
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This irregularly published journal has many articles that analyze individual choreographies, especially from 15th-century Italian and French sources. See also Journals.
Find this resource:
Prina, Federica Calvino. “Nizarda! Qué danza es esa?” In L’arte della danza ai tempi di Claudio Monteverdi: Atti del convegno internazionale, Torino, 6–7 Settembre 1993. Edited by Angelo Chiarle, 17–32. Turin, Italy: Istituto per i Beni Musicali in Piemonte, 1996.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed analysis of the dance and accompanying music of the dance la Nizzarda, through an examination of original sources: letters, memoirs, plays, and dance treatises. Text is in Italian.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Rôti Bouilli: Take Two ‘el gioioso fiorito.’” Studi Musicali 24.2 (1995): 231–261.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study, transcription, and translation of four descriptions of three choreographies found in the papers of a notary from Montefiascone, all of which are highly ornamented versions of dances found in the 15th-century Italian dance treaties. Provides an insight into how the dances recorded in the treatises may well have been performed with these elaborately decorated steps that are not described in the treatises themselves. Text is in English.
Find this resource:
Testi, Lucio Paolo. “‘Poi passeggiando . . .’: Riflessioni sulla Pavana Matthei.” In Virtute et arte del danzare: Contributi di storia della danza in onore di Barbara Sparti. Edited by Alessandro Pontremoli, 49–81. Rome: Aracne, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed discussion with extensive footnotes on the dance and music of the Pavana Matthei from Caroso’s treatise Il ballarino (1581). Includes a consideration of other forms of the pavane as described in the English Inns of Court manuscripts, and Arbeau’s dance treatise.
Find this resource:
Geographical Studies

Dance history as an academic discipline is relatively new; therefore, there are as yet no book-length studies of the whole period from 1400 to 1650. Scholars have tended to focus on one particular country over a shorter time period or on a specific region or court. Basic research into recovering the choreographic repertoire is still being carried out, along with contextual studies on dance in society. This study needs to be done before scholars can establish meaningful comparisons between different regions and identify far more precisely how dance practices changed over the course of time or how such changes varied across different regions. Given the evidence from chronicles, letters, diaries, and so on, it is clear that at the time people were able to, and did, make distinctions between the dance styles from different regions of Italy, for example, as well as between different “national” dance practices. The basis on which such judgments were made is still a matter for debate among scholars. Nordera 2007 discusses the issue of identity and regional difference in dance practices across Europe, as well as emphasizing the common elements in western European dance.

Nordera, Marina. “The Exchange of Dance Cultures in Renaissance Europe: Italy, France and Abroad.” In Forging European Identities, 1400–1700. Edited by Herman Roodenburg, 308–328. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of the two opposing forces in European dance practices: the cultural diffusion across Europe of different dance styles, and the strong connection between movements of the body and gestural codes that was tied to the expression of a regional or national identity.
Find this resource:
Italy

The earliest known dance treatises are from 15th-century Italy. These manuscripts, all written (in one version at least) from the 1440s to the 1460s, contain choreographic descriptions as well as a theoretical section in which the dance masters explain the philosophical foundation and theoretical principles of the dance practice. Part of the rationale for writing these treatises was the desire of the dance masters to advance their practice to the status of a liberal art. Nevile 2004 examines the relationship between the dance practice and contemporary humanist thought, whereas Sparti 1993 provides the focal point for a discussion of the social context of dancing in quattrocento Italy. Guglielmo himself was a Jew who converted to Christianity taking the name Giovanni Ambrosio, and Sparti 2000 continues an examination of this aspect of Renaissance Italian dance practice. McGinnis 2001 extends the study of Italian dance into the 16th century, emphasizing the development of the profession of dance teaching and performing. The majority of studies on Italian dance have concentrated on centers in the northern half of Italy. Nocilli 2011 examines dance practice in southern Italy and its links with Spanish practices. Dance performances in Italy and across the whole of Europe were a frequent and integral part of festivities, both official state events and religious feasts. A great deal of the information about these dance performances comes from descriptions in chronicles, letters, and literary works. Carsaniga 2004 is a translation of such a poem and an important source of information on the wider dance context and on the attitudes and reaction of those watching this outdoor ball in mid-15th-century Florence.

Carsaniga, Giovanni, trans. “Transcription and Translation of MS from Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Magl. VII 1121, f. 63r-69v.” In The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Edited by Jennifer Nevile, 141–157. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An elegant translation (with the original text facing) of the part of a lengthy anonymous poem describing an outdoor ball held in Florence in 1459. The poem describes the preparation, the dancing itself, the reaction of the dancers and the audience to the performance, and the banquet that followed.
Find this resource:
McGinnis, Katherine Tucker. “Moving in High Circles: Courts, Dance, and Dancing Masters in Italy in the Long Sixteenth Century.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of dance in 15th- and 16th-century Italy from the viewpoint of the development of a professional category of dancing masters, who in the 16th century were proto-entrepreneurs, selling their knowledge, ability, and performances to both courtly and middle-class customers.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the place of dance in elite society of 15th-century Italy and the ways in which it participated in and was influenced by other contemporary artistic practices, social conditions, and intellectual movements, particularly humanist thought. An appendix (pp. 161–188) provides the music and floor track of four balli and one interpretation of how to perform the nine natural steps. Also see Music.
Find this resource:
Nocilli, Cecilia. Coreografare l’identità: La danza alla corte aragonese di Napoli (1442–1502). Turin, Italy: UTET Universita, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A contextual, document-based study on the dance practice in the Aragonese kingdom of Naples and its links with contemporary Spanish practices. Considers the music and iconography as well as the dance elements of the ceremonies and entries and discusses the political significance of the dance performances. Appendix 3 is a transcription of documents relating to entries and feasts from 1442 to 1502.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Introduction.” In De practica seu arte tripudii/On the Practice or Art of Dancing. By Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro. Edited and translated by Barbara Sparti, 3–72. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The lengthy introduction to her translation of Guglielmo Ebreo’s dance treatise provides excellent background information on the social context of dancing in Italy, Guglielmo’s life, and the relationship between the different versions of his treatise. Extensive footnotes.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Jewish Dancing-Masters and ‘Jewish Dance’ in Renaissance Italy (Guglielmo Ebreo and Beyond).” Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review 20.1–2 (2000): 11–23.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on dancing in Jewish communities in Renaissance Italy, as well as Jewish dance masters who had careers in the wider, non-Jewish society. A useful list of unanswered questions concludes the article.
Find this resource:
France

There are far less surviving choreographic records from France than from Italy. Wilson 2012 is the most comprehensive study of the genre most frequently performed and documented in 15th-century France, the basse dance, which also continued to be performed in the 16th century. The two 16th-century dance treatises written by Antonius Arena (Arena 1986) and Thoinot Arbeau (Arbeau 1967) not only provide information on how to perform various steps and complete choreographies, but they are also a rich source of information on the social aspect of dancing. Marrocco and Merveille 1989 complements the translation of Arena’s essay on dance through its discussion of Arena’s life and the relationship of his dance activities to his legal and military pursuits. Information on 16th-century danced spectacles can be found in Beaujoyeulx 1982, which includes an introduction to the facsimile edition of Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx’s 1581 work, Le Balet Comique de la Reyne, while McGowan 2008 is the one study that covers every aspect of dance in 16th-century France, both at the court and in the country, as well as placing the dance practice in its social context.

Arbeau, Thoinot. Orchesography. Translated by Mary Steward Evans. New York: Dover, 1967.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Arbeau’s treatise is an important source of information on 16th-century social dancing, the different genres of dance and the expected behavior of dancers. This translation includes the original illustrations, music, and the dance steps aligned with the music. Introduction and notes by Julia Sutton. The 1589 edition can be found online at the Library of Congress website An American Ballroom Companion (cited under Treatises). Originally published in English in 1948.
Find this resource:
Arena, Antonius. “Rules of Dancing: Antonius Arena.” Translated by John Guthrie and Marino Zorzi. Dance Research 4.2 (1986): 3–53.
DOI: 10.2307/1290725Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Originally published as Ad suos compagniones studiantes (1529). Transcription of the dance material in macaronic Latin entitled Leges dansandi, with an English translation. The translation overall is good and written in a lively style, but there are some misreadings of the text. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de. Le Balet Comique 1581. Facs. ed. Edited by Margaret M. McGowan. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1982.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
McGowan’s introduction (pp. 9–49) discusses the general and specific context for this event, the ballet itself, its performers and creators, its artistic significance and reception at the time, and its social and political ramifications. The facsimile includes the French text, musical score, and iconography. English translation by Carol MacClintock and Lander MacClintock (Middleton, WI: American Institute of Musicology, 1971).
Find this resource:
Marrocco, W. Thomas, and Marie-Laure Merveille. “Anthonius Arena: Master of Law and Dance of the Renaissance.” Studi musicali 18.1 (1989): 19–48.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion on Arena’s life and his essay on dance Leges dansandi from his publication Ad suos compagniones studiantes, which provides dance choreographies and advice on matters relating to the social side of dancing: dress, behavior while dancing, and grooming.
Find this resource:
McGowan, Margaret M. Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A richly illustrated, erudite, and very detailed study of dancing in 16th-century France that places the dance practice in its social, political, and international context. McGowan also addresses contemporary attitudes to dance and the problems facing modern researchers who have to deal with incomplete and often fragmentary source material. Also see Court Dancing.
Find this resource:
Wilson, David R. The Basse Dance Handbook: Text and Context. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The most recent and most comprehensive study of the French basse dance in the 15th and 16th centuries. Includes a discussion of the social context of this dance genre, how to perform the steps, and an examination of the iconographic evidence. Also see Genres.
Find this resource:
England

Even though the English Stuart and Caroline masques have received a large degree of attention from modern scholars, most of that work has been from a literary viewpoint. More recently scholars have turned their attention to the choreographic aspects of the masques, as in Ravelhofer 2006, while Streitberger 1994 studies the Tudor Revels, predecessors of the 17th-century court masques. The Inns of Court also produced masques for specific occasions and held regular dance performances every year called the Solemn Revels. Wilson 1986–1987 gives a transcription of, and commentary on, the surviving dances that were performed at the Solemn Revels from the late 16th century onward. The picture of dancing in England c. 1500 was widened dramatically with the rediscovery of a collection of sophisticated choreographic material compiled in South Derbyshire with no obvious links to the court. Fallows 1996 provides a commentary and transcription of this material, while Nevile 1998 is an analysis of the twenty-six choreographies. The place of dancing in the daily lives of the majority of the 17th-century English population is the focus of Marsh 2010.

Fallows, David. “The Gresley Dance Collection, c. 1500.” RMA Research Chronicle 29 (1996): 1–20.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Commentary and transcription of the earliest surviving English dance source (c. 1500), rediscovered in 1995. The source contains thirteen monophonic melodies, twenty-six choreographic descriptions, and a list of ninety-one dance titles. The thirteen tunes are given in facsimile and in modern notation.
Find this resource:
Marsh, Christopher. Music and Society in Early Modern England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 7 (“‘The Skipping Art’: Dance and Society,” pp. 328–390) is a discussion of dancing and dance music at all levels of society in 17th-century England, including the dance tunes found in the editions of Playford’s The Dancing Master published before 1700. A CD is included with performances of some of Playford’s dance music.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “Dance in Early Tudor England: An Italian Connection?” Early Music 26.2 (1998): 230–244.
DOI: 10.1093/em/26.2.230Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An analysis of the twenty-six choreographies found in the Gresley papers: their step vocabulary and choreographic structure, the interaction between performers, their floor patterns, their similarities and differences with 15th-century French and Italian dance practices, and possible connections with English court revels activity. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Ravelhofer, Barbara. The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed, dance-focused study of the early-17th-century English masques and their European context, including substantial discussions on how the theatrical choreographies actually worked on stage. Part 2 focuses on the masque costumes, their production, circulation and storage, and their impact on the stage. Part 3 presents four case studies.
Find this resource:
Streitberger, W. R. Court Revels, 1485–1559. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Comprehensive study of the Revels (a single entertainment or series of entertainments planned by the king or his advisors) held at the English court, and their domestic (or private) and their political (or state) functions.
Find this resource:
Wilson, David R. “Dancing in the Inns of Court.” Historical Dance 2.5 (1986–1987): 3–16.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A transcription and commentary of the dances that have a clear association with the Solemn Revels at the Inns of Court in the late 16th and 17th centuries.
Find this resource:
Spain

Brooks 2003 and Esses 1992–1994 both provide lengthy, wide-ranging accounts of 17th-century Spanish dance practice, while Cano 2005 is a smaller study focused on dancing during secular royal festivities in Madrid. Dancing in a religious context, in this case the Corpus Christi processions in Seville, is examined in Brooks 1988. Much less is known about Spanish dance practices in the 15th century than in the 17th century, but just as in the rest of Europe, dance played an important part in elite festive events, as demonstrated by Ruiz 1994. Another link between dance in Spain and the rest of Western Europe in the 15th century is the performance in Catalonia and Aragon of their version of the basse dance. The sources that record these dances are discussed in Mas i Garcia 1992.

Brooks, Lynn Matluck. The Dances of the Processions of Seville in Spain’s Golden Age. Kassel, Germany: Reichenberger, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study of the Corpus Christi processions in Seville from 1454 to the end of the 17th century and the dancing of the choir boys both during the processions and in the cathedral. The glossary of dance terms is useful but not always accurate.
Find this resource:
Brooks, Lynn Matluck. The Art of Dancing in Seventeenth-Century Spain: Juan de Esquivel Navarro and His World. London: Associated University Press, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comprehensive account of 17th-century Spanish dance in its cultural context, together with a transcription of Juan de Esquivel Navarro’s 1642 dance treatise and an English translation of the text.
Find this resource:
Cano, David Sanchez. “Dances for the Royal Festivities in Madrid in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Dance Research 23.2 (2005): 123–152.
DOI: 10.3366/drs.2005.23.2.123Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study of the dances performed during the triumphal entries in Madrid from 1481 to 1690. Includes the themes of the dances, the types of dances performed, the performers and their costumes, the choreographers (which in this case were both male and female), and the changes that occurred over the two centuries. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Esses, Maurice. Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain during the 17th and Early 18th Centuries. 3 vols. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1992–1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Volume 1 is a detailed study on the uses of dance in Spain, Spanish dance masters, attitudes toward dancing, the choreographic sources, individual dance genres, dancing in theatrical works and as part of religious events, the dance music, and the social and political context. Volume 2 provides a transcription of the dance music, and Volume 3 transcribes the original Spanish texts.
Find this resource:
Mas i Garcia, Carles. “Baixa Dansa in the Kingdom of Catalonia and Aragon in the 15th Century.” Historical Dance 3.1 (1992): 15–23.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of the earliest Catalonian sources to refer to the baixa dansa (basse dance) including the Cervera manuscript, which contains choreographies of eleven baixes danses in a unique notation. Garcia gives his interpretation of the notation and its relationship with dance notation from later Spanish sources.
Find this resource:
Ruiz, Teofilo F. “Elite and Popular Culture in Late Fifteenth-Century Castilian Festivals: The Case of Jaén.” In City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe. Edited by Barbara A. Hannawalt and Kathryn L. Reyerson, 296–318. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examination of the festivals in Jaén and the dancing that was part of the celebrations. Ruiz argues that these festivals combined courtly and popular themes and were organized by those in power for their own political advantage.
Find this resource:
Germany and the Low Countries

The picture of dancing in Germany and the Low Countries in the Renaissance is very fragmented, mostly due to the lack of surviving dance treatises from these areas. Five court ballets performed in Stuttgart between 1607 and 1618 are the focus of Smart 2004. De Coonan 2000 looks at dance performances at a local, noncourt level in the southern Netherlands right at the end of our period. Salmen 2001, a study of dance and dance music, focuses on the late medieval and early Renaissance period across Europe, but it concentrates on Germany. It is a good example of the information provided by nondance sources and provides useful references to German scholarship on the subject.

de Coonan, Ingeborg. “Dances and Ballet in Seventeenth-Century Theatre of the Southern Netherlands.” In Terpsichore 1450–1900: Proceedings of the International Dance Conference, Ghent, Belgium, 11–18, April 2000. Edited by Barbara Ravelhofer, 115–129. Ghent, Belgium: Institute for Historical Dance Practice, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study of the dancing which occurred in the theatrical productions organized by local chambers of rhetoric (amateur poets and dramatists).
Find this resource:
Salmen, Walter. “Dances and Dance Music, c. 1300–1530.” In Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages. Edited by Reinhard Strohm and Bonnie J. Blackburn, 162–190. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses elite and burgher dances, sacred and secular dance practices, dance houses, dancing as part of dramatic productions, and vocal and instrumental dance music throughout Europe but concentrates on Germany. Also see General Overviews.
Find this resource:
Smart, Sara. “The Württemberg Court and the Introduction of Ballet into the Empire.” In Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe. Vol. 2. Edited by J. R. Mulryne, Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly, and Margaret Shewring, 35–45. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of five of the earliest court ballets performed between 1607 and 1618 at the court of the Dukes of Württemberg in Stuttgart and their relationship with early 17th-century English masques.
Find this resource:
Performance Context

The context of a dance performance is an important part of research into early dance as changes in the context could alter the meaning and significance of performance. The performance context includes the place in which a performance took place (indoors or outside), the composition of the audience (a few family members, peers, members of the court, or members of the wider public), the performers themselves, their costumes, the staging practices including lighting, the nature of the event of which dancing was a part (religious events, state festivals, wedding festivities, or victory celebrations), and the nature and type of the musical forces that accompanied the dancing. The part played by the costumes of the dancers in court entertainments is discussed in Arnold 1993 (see also Ravelhofer 2006, cited under England), while Daye 2004 focuses on the physical performance spaces for early 17th-century English court spectacles. McGinnis 2011 takes up the issue of exactly what defined a dance performance as private or public in the 16th century. One aspect of the issue of lighting is discussed in Daye 1998, which examines the role of the torchbearers in the English masque, both as mobile light towers and as dancers.

Arnold, Janet. “Costume for Masques and Other Entertainments c. 1500–1650.” Historical Dance 3.2 (1993): 3–20.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of costumes for court entertainments and how they contributed to the meaning expressed by these spectacles. Not available online.
Find this resource:
Daye, Anne. “Torchbearers in the English Masque.” Early Music 26.2 (1998): 246–262.
DOI: 10.1093/em/26.2.246Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Study of the use of torchbearers in the English masque and their increased role as dancers after 1613. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Daye, Anne. “The Banqueting House, Whitehall: A Site Specific to Dance.” Historical Dance 4.1 (2004): 3–22.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Daye discusses the commission of the Banqueting House by James I, its design, and its relationship to the surrounding government buildings. She then discusses how banqueting houses in England worked as dance performance spaces, discussing rehearsals, lighting, music, backstage staff, and the conduct of the audience.
Find this resource:
McGinnis, Katherine Tucker. “‘Face Time–Mask Time’: The Merging and Diverging of Public and Private Space in Sixteenth-Century Dance Practices.” In Virtute et arte del danzare: Contributi di storia della danza in onore di Barbara Sparti. Edited by Alessandro Pontremoli, 83–97. Rome: Aracne, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
McGinnis argues that whether a dance performance was considered a public or a private occasion depended more on the interaction of the location, type of event, and composition of the audience rather than just the location.
Find this resource:
Theatrical Dancing

Dance performances were an integral part of theatrical spectacles across Europe, whether in court fêtes, masquerades, intermedi, masques, or early operas as well as wedding festivities such as those described in Bortoletti 2002. Even though theatrical danced spectacles were a regular occurrence, not many of the choreographies have survived (see Nevile 1998, cited under Reconstruction and Performance Practice). Bosi 2005 analyzes a recently discovered choreography performed in Ferrara in 1582, while Kendall 2004 discusses the four performances recorded by Negri in his dance treatise Le gratie d’amore (1602; see Kendall 1985, cited under Treatises). The musicologist Tim Carter (Carter 2002) examines Monteverdi’s theatrical works in the context of early 17th-century stage productions. Given the multimedia character of these spectacles, all the studies cited here consider dance together with other major elements: music and poetry. Garden 2010, a facsimile edition of the 1617 French ballet de cour also includes essays on the staging of this ballet and the costumes of the dancers. The performers in these spectacles were both members of the court (Bosi 2005 and Fenlon 2005) and professional dancers (Di Tondo 1996). Because theatrical danced spectacles were frequently part of a state event, they were used by rulers to further their own domestic or international political agendas. The political nature of these spectacles is emphasized in Daye 2012, a study of Tethy’s Festival and its related ceremonies. See also Court Dancing, McGowan 2008 and Beaujoyeulx 1982 (both cited under France), and Franko 1993 (cited under Genres).

Bortoletti, Francesca. “An Allegorical Fabula for the Bentivoglio-D’Este Marriage of 1487.” Dance Chronicle 25.3 (2002): 321–342.
DOI: 10.1081/DNC-120016111Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of the dances performed at Bologna based on contemporary accounts of the wedding festivities. Passages that describe the dancing are given in the original Italian and in an English translation. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Bosi, Kathryn. “Leone Tolosa and Martel d’amore: A balletto della duchessa Discovered.” Recercare: Rivista per lo studio e la pratica della musica antica 17 (2005): 5–70.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article serves as a model for the scholarly analysis of a danced event. The choreographic description of the newly discovered balletto is reproduced in full, along with extensive analysis of the choreography, the text, and what can be gleaned about the music that did not survive. Concludes with a discussion setting out the context of the 1582 performance by the Duchess of Ferrara and her ladies. Detailed footnotes.
Find this resource:
Carter, Tim. Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dancing in one form or another was involved in almost all of Monteverdi’s theatrical works. Carter sets Orfeo, the balli, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Il ritorno d’ulisse in patria, and L’incoronazione di Pappea into their context of early 17th-century stage works, looking at the music, poetry, dance, and the production processes that brought these works to fruition.
Find this resource:
Daye, Anne. “‘The Power of His Commanding Trident’: Tethy’s Festival as Royal Policy.” Historical Dance 4.2 (2012): 19–28.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Sets this masque in its context and demonstrates its importance in the series of ceremonies for the creation of Henry as Prince of Wales in 1610 and the political message it carried.
Find this resource:
Di Tondo, Ornella. “‘Leggiadrìa di ballo et di gesti’: Alcune osservazioni sulla danza negli intermedi e nel primo melodramma tra XVI e XVII secolo.” In L’arte della danza ai tempi di Claudio Monteverdi: Atti del convegno internazionale, Torino, 6–7 Settembre 1993. Edited by Angelo Chiarle, 189–226. Turin, Italy: Istituto per i Beni Musicali in Piemonte, 1996.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the dancing of both professional and nonprofessional dancers in the 16th and 17th centuries through the writings of theorists, descriptions of spectacles, and the few surviving theatrical choreographies. Detailed footnotes and illustrations of choreographic figures.
Find this resource:
Fenlon, Iain. “The Claims of Choreography: Women Courtiers and Danced Spectacle in Late Sixteenth-Century Paris and Ferrara.” In Frauen und Musik im Europa des 16. Jahrhunderts: Infrastrukturen, Aktivitaten, Motivationen. Edited by Nicole Schwindt, 75–89. Kassel, Germany: Bärenreiter, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses the relationship between the balletti devised and performed by the duchess of Ferrara in the 1580s and the danced spectacles at the French court in 1572, 1573, and 1581. Fenlon’s conclusions as to the direction of the influence between the different danced spectacles and the primacy of Cavalieri’s ballo for the sixth intermedio of the 1589 Florentine celebrations for 17th-century danced spectacles are open to debate (see Bosi 2005).
Find this resource:
Garden, Greer, ed. La Délivrance de Renaud: Ballet dansé par Louis XIII en 1617. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A facsimile of Ètienne Durand’s publication that includes the livret, images of the sets, the costumes, the vocal music and detailed descriptions of the choreography. An English translation of the livret is provided, together with an edition of the music and essays (some in French and some in English) on the historical context, the sources of inspiration, the music, the staging and costumes, and on the dances themselves.
Find this resource:
Kendall, G. Yvonne. “Theatre, Dance and Music in Late Cinquecento Milan.” Early Music 32.1 (2004): 74–95.
DOI: 10.1093/earlyj/32.1.74Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Sets the four theatrical performances described by Negri in his treatise in context. Contains an analysis of the choreographic structure of each dance and the structure of the accompanying music. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Court Dancing

Due to the surviving documentation, the dance performances by sovereigns and their courtiers have received the most attention from modern scholars. Both Ravelhofer 2004 and Daye 2007 focus on the dancing of female royalty: in one case as a sovereign, Queen Elizabeth I, and in the other as a consort, Queen Henrietta Maria. Sparti 2007 chronicles the court dancing at the court of Ferrara, while McGowan 2008 focuses on the 16th-century French court. These four primary source studies are in contrast to Kolsky 1998 in which the author discusses the social and political implications of the necessity for dance expertise by courtiers.

Daye, Anne. “At the Queen’s Command: Henrietta Maria and the Development of the English Masque.” In Women’s Work: Making Dance in Europe before 1800. Edited by Lynn Matluck Brooks, 71–95. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on Henrietta Maria’s contribution to the masques in which she performed.
Find this resource:
Kolsky, Stephen. “Graceful Performances: The Social and Political Context of Music and Dance in the Cortegiano.” Italian Studies 53 (1998): 1–19.
DOI: 10.1179/007516398790599958Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses the place of music and dance in The Book of the Courtier and how the two arts were crucial to a courtier’s social and political existence. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
McGowan, Margaret M. Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 5 (“Dance Conquers the Court I: Francois Ier and Henri II, pp. 127–150) and chapter 6 (“Dance Conquers the Court II: Catherine de Medicis and her Sons,” pp. 151–182) examine the balls, fêtes, and masquerades held at the French court under François I through to Henri IV at which the monarchs and courtiers performed. Includes (“Records of the Dance in the French Renaissance: Dances, Mascarades and Ballets,” pp. 249–259) a chronological list of all the dances, ballets, and masquerades held in France from 1500 to 1600. Also see France.
Find this resource:
Ravelhofer, Barbara. “Dancing at the Court of Queen Elizabeth.” In Queen Elizabeth I: Past and Present. Edited by Christa Jansohn, 101–115. Münster, Germany: LIT Verlag, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Dance-specific information on Queen Elizabeth I’s abilities as a dancer and on what dances she performed and in which contexts, both semi-private and public. Ravelhofer demonstrates how Elizabeth used her own dance performances to further her political policies and uphold her image as monarch.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Isabella and the Dancing Este Brides, 1473–1514.” In Women’s Work: Making Dance in Europe before 1800. Edited by Lynn Matluck Brooks, 19–48. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discussion of the social dancing and balls and the theatrical dance performances in which the Ferrarese court participated. The author’s conclusion that social dancing was considered insignificant by its participants and audience and that only the dancing in theatrical spectacles carried meaning is controversial.
Find this resource:
Middle and Lower Class Dancing

Dancing occurred across all social levels in Europe during the Renaissance, with the knowledge of, and ability in, specific dance styles often serving as a social marker. Many of those in the middle rung of society enrolled in dance schools or hired a private teacher so that they could improve their social status. Yet the barriers between dances performed by the elite and those at a lower social level were flexible, with dances that originated in an urban or country environment being adopted—and adapted—by the elite for their own enjoyment. McGowan 2001 looks at this interaction in France in the first half of the 17th century, while Nevile 2012 discusses middle class attitudes to dance in 16th-century Venice. For a discussion of nonelite, social, participatory dancing in 17th-century England, see Marsh 2010 (cited under England). Much of what is known about nonelite, especially lower class, dancing comes from nondance sources, such as legal cases for people prosecuted for dancing on the Sabbath. The volumes in the series Records of Early English Drama (REED) are a useful source for this type of material, while the documentary evidence for Renaissance Italy is evaluated in Gala 2007.

Gala, Giuseppe Michele. “Letteratura minore e spigolature del ballo rusticano.” In Danza, cultura e società nel Rinascimento Italiano. Edited by Eugenia Casini Ropa and Francecca Bortoletti, 107–126. Macerata, Italy: Ephemeria, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A good summary of what little can be gleaned from the surviving documentary sources. Useful also for the section on the reliability of those sources.
Find this resource:
McGowan, Margaret M. “Ballets for the Bourgeois.” Dance Research 19.2 (2001): 106–126.
DOI: 10.3366/1290978Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Deals with France c. 1600–1650. Discusses ballets produced by lawyers in their own homes as well as the productions of court ballets in public theaters for bourgeois audiences, including those at which Louis XIII and his nobles performed. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “Learning the Bassadanza from a Wolf: Andrea Calmo and Dance.” Dance Research 30.1 (2012): 80–97.
DOI: 10.3366/drs.2012.0035Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Centered around a study of Calmo’s letters, this essay provides insight into middle class attitudes toward, and knowledge of, dance in 16th-century Venice. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Records of Early English Drama. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979–.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Series publishing documentary evidence for dramatic, ceremonial, and musical activity—including dance—in England before 1642 from separate counties and cities. Each introduction covers the historical background, a summary of dramatic, musical and dance events, seasonal customs, royal visits, and popular festivities. The published documents include the accounts of merchants, households, and churchwardens, as well as documents from legal cases. Some texts are available online.
Find this resource:
Music

In the Renaissance the art of dance was intimately linked to the art of music, not only because of the obvious fact that people danced to music, but also because in many genres dances were individually choreographed and so each dance required a unique piece of music that had the same meter and tempo structure as the choreography it accompanied. Therefore to understand fully what was happening in the choreographies, scholars must also understand how the accompanying music operated, which is what Nevile 2004 provides for the 15th-century Italian balli, and Jones 1988 for the later 16th-century Italian repertory. Sparti 1996 exploits this close relationship between a dance and its accompanying music in a study of the frottolas, which have the same title as early 16th-century Italian balli for which a choreographic description exists but no music. While dance music must match a choreography in terms of its meter—duple or triple—and be played at a tempo (or a number of tempi) suitable for performance, the musical phrase structures do not automatically have to match the choreographic phrase structures, as Sparti 2009 demonstrates in a study of published galliard music. In the 15th century especially, much dance music was improvised, and in the 16th century when it was published, it often appeared in forms suitable for domestic music making rather than as an exact score representing how the dance music would be performed for a ball or for a theatrical spectacle. Coldwell 1983 addresses the phenomenon of dance music published for domestic purposes, while Polk 2003 explores how instrumentalists who regularly and frequently improvised music to accompany dancing responded to the changes that occurred in dance music in the early 16th century. For a study of Monteverdi’s dance music, see Carter 2002 (cited under Theatrical Dancing).

Coldwell, Charles P. “Angelo Gardano’s Balletti Moderni and Its Relation to Cesare Negri’s Le Gratie d’Amore.” Journal of the Lute Society of America 16 (1983): 57–102.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of Gardano’s collection of dance music, which has thirty-six pieces in common with Negri’s treatise. Sheds light on the intersection between music played for dances and that published in collections for music-making in people’s homes and on the popularity of the dance tunes.
Find this resource:
Jones, Pamela. “The Relation between Music and Dance in Cesare Negri’s Le Gratie d’Amore, 1602.” 2 vols. PhD diss., Kings College, University of London, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Volume 1 is an analysis of the steps in Negri’s treatise and the changes required when the steps are performed in duple meter versus triple meter. Volume 2 contains the reconstruction of six dances and an edition of the music along with a critical commentary.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 4 (“Dance and the Intellect,” pp. 104–118) provides a clear, concise, and simple explanation of the four misure (sections of music in different meters and tempi) as described in the dance treatises of Domenico, Guglielmo Ebreo, and Cornazano and the practical implications for the performance of the dances. Discusses the reason dance masters used Pythagorean ratios as the basis for the creation of balli. Also see Italy.
Find this resource:
Polk, Keith. “Instrumentalists and Performance Practices in Dance Music, c. 1500.” In Improvisation in the Arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Edited by Timothy J. McGee, 98–114. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the innovations that occurred in dance music in the early 16th century and how instrumentalists responded to these changes in texture, the new emphasis on composed dances, and the need for extended elaboration of repeated bass patterns.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Would You Like to Dance This Frottola? Choreographic Concordances in Two Early Sixteenth-Century Tuscan Sources.” Musica Disciplina 50 (1996): 135–165.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A discussion of early 16th-century Italian balli for which no music has survived and contemporary songs that have the same titles as the dances. Sparti explores whether it is possible to perform the balli to the music of the same name.
Find this resource:
Sparti, Barbara. “Irregular and Asymmetric Galliards: The Case of Salamone Rossi.” In The Sights and Sounds of Performance in Early Music: Essays in Honour of Timothy J. McGee. Edited by Maureen Epp and Brian E. Power, 211–228. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Challenges the widely held assumption that music for galliards have regular phrase structures. After studying music for the galliard published from 1529 to 1629, Sparti concludes that most galliard music has uneven length phrases, which do not always match the length of the choreographic phrases.
Find this resource:
Iconography

Because the documentary evidence for dance across Europe from 1400 to 1650 is uneven, sometimes even nonexistent, dance historians have increasingly turned to images of the dancing body to further their understanding of a particular genre or of dance from a specific region or period, as Brooks 1996 does for 17th-century Spain, and Padovan 1987 and Padovan 2007 do for 15th-century Italy. This approach can provide a greater understanding of the way movements of the body were viewed and how certain movements were considered appropriate for people of one social level, or of one gender, but not for another. Baxandall 1988, first published in 1972, on painting in 15th-century Italy established the framework for this type of research and provided the inspiration for later scholars such as Fermor 1993. The use of iconographic evidence in interpreting the movement patterns of past dance practices, however, is not without its pitfalls, as Fermor 1987 demonstrates.

Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A seminal work for understanding the relationships between movements of the dancing body and the depiction of movement in paintings.
Find this resource:
Brooks, Lynn Matluck. “Text and Image as Evidence for Posture and Movement Style in Seventeenth-Century Spain.” Imago musicae 13 (1996): 39–61.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the iconographic evidence that provides information on the stance, gesture, steps, and spatial disposition of the dancing body and the different movement style of the various social classes in Spain.
Find this resource:
Fermor, Sharon. “On the Question of Pictorial ‘Evidence’ for Fifteenth-Century Dance Technique.” Dance Research 5.2 (1987): 18–32.
DOI: 10.2307/1290621Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Fermor argues that using paintings as evidence for dance performance practice is treacherous for a number of reasons. For example, 15th-century dance movements were subtle, and therefore artists would have had to exaggerate them in the interests of clarity. Furthermore, when representing dance, artists used established formulas to suit their own symbolic and narrative purposes. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Fermor, Sharon. “Movement and Gender in Sixteenth-Century Italian Painting.” In The Body Imaged: The Human Form and Visual Culture since the Renaissance. Edited by Kathleen Adler and Marcia R. Pointon, 129–145. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The terms used in writings on dance and painting were closely connected during the Renaissance. Fermor examines the terms leggiadria and gagliardezza as used by Dolce and Vasari when they describe movement, together with writings on dance and deportment.
Find this resource:
Padovan, Maurizio. “La danza alle corti italiane del XV secolo: Arte figurativa e fonte storiche.” In Mesura et arte del danzare: Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo. Edited by Patrizia Castelli, Maurizio Mingardi, and Maruizio Padovan, 59–111. Pesaro, Italy: Pucelle, 1987.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A discussion of the images of dancing figures from the 14th and 15th centuries. Contains fifty-three illustrations, many of which are in color.
Find this resource:
Padovan, Maurizio. “Arte danzante e costume musicale del Quattrocento.” In Danza, cultura e società nel Rinascimento Italiano. Edited by Eugenia Casini Ropa and Francesca Bortoletti, 75–87. Macerata, Italy: Ephemeria, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Padovan argues that it is possible to identify a constant relationship between the images of dancing and the themes of the decoration (e.g., the garden of love, historical scenes). Furthermore, the artists’ choice of accompanying instruments was related to the role of those instruments in society and to the subject being depicted.
Find this resource:
Other Arts

In their choreographies the dance masters of the 15th to the early 17th centuries sought to express the same design principles and ideals of beauty that operated in other artistic practices, as demonstrated in Nevile 2007, a study of the choreographies from Caroso’s two dance treatises (1581 and 1600; see An American Ballroom Companion, cited under Treatises). Nevile 2008 explores these common design principles in dance, grand gardens, and architecture, all of which were concerned with the ordering of space. Fencing was another art concerned with the ordering of space and was often taught in the same schools along with dance. Yet the methods employed to depict movement in the treatises of these two arts differed markedly, as Anglo 2011 explores. The theatrical spectacles that played such a prominent role in court life during this period combined music, dance, poetry, architecture as well as lighting and costumes to achieve their effects. McGowan 1994 discusses the interaction of dance, music, and poetry in the spectacles of the French court in the second half of the 16th century, while McGowan 1985 concentrates on the relationship between poetry and dance in 16th-century France. Horse ballets often formed part of a series of festive events and were choreographed by the court dance master. Not surprisingly, this type of spectacle shared common features with other dance spectacles. These similarities are discussed in van Orden 2005.

Anglo, Sydney. L’escrime, la danse et l’art de la guerre: Le livre et la représentation du mouvement. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A richly illustrated study of the similarities and differences between the art of dance and the martial arts and how movement was represented in the treatises of these related endeavors.
Find this resource:
McGowan, Margaret M. Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the literary phenomenon of praise in 16th-century France, its moral, social, intellectual, and political contexts, centered around the works of Ronsard. Chapter 6 explores how poets wrote about and viewed the dancing body.
Find this resource:
McGowan, Margaret M. “The Arts Conjoined: A Context for the Study of Music.” Early Music History 13 (1994): 171–198.
DOI: 10.1017/S0261127900001340Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A discussion of the conditions of artistic production in France c. 1550 to 1600, and the collective role of music, dance, and poetry in these productions. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “‘Rules for Design’: Beauty and Grace in Caroso’s Choreographies.” Dance Research 25.2 (2007): 107–118.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of the choreographic changes found in Caroso’s two treatises. Concludes that Caroso was not focused on symmetry in the modern sense of the mirror symmetry but rather with balanced choreographic sections and spatial patterns, the repetition of step sequences, and the creation of regular geometric shapes, so that his choreographies conformed to the prevailing theory of beauty in the other arts. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “Order, Proportion and Geometric Forms: The Cosmic Structure of Dance, Grand Gardens and Architecture During the Renaissance.” In Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750. Edited by Jennifer Nevile, 295–311. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A discussion of the design principles common to 15th- to 17th-century dance, garden design, and architecture.
Find this resource:
van Orden, Kate. Music, Discipline and Arms in Early Modern France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Chapter 6 (“‘Dresser l’homme’: Ballet à Cheval,” pp. 235–284) is a study of the French horse ballets and their relationship to other danced theatrical spectacles. Includes a discussion of the dressage techniques, the choreographies, the music, and the costumes of the riders.
Find this resource:
Attitudes to Dance

Dance in Europe from the late medieval period onward was a practice in which both the secular and the religious participated. Attitudes toward dance during this period were ambivalent, with it being viewed as sinful and also as a noble virtue. Nevile 2008 provides a useful introductory summary, while Arcangeli 2000 is a very detailed study of the debate surrounding dance in society. The situation in Elizabethan England is described in Pennino-Baskerville 1991. By the 15th century one positive view of dancing that was promulgated in the dance treatises and in literature more generally was that dance—through music—reflected the order of the heavens. Carter 1987 outlines the transmission of this viewpoint from the ancient Greek writers to the Renaissance humanists, while Thesiger 1973 demonstrates how it operated in one particular late 16th-century poem.

Arcangeli, Alessandro. Davide o Salomè? Il dibattito europeo sulla danza nella prima età moderna. Rome: Viella, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed study of the moral debate concerning dance from the 13th century to the early 18th century from both inside and outside the Church—Catholic and Protestant—from the legal profession, and from a medical perspective.
Find this resource:
Carter, Françoise. “Celestial Dance: A Search for Perfection.” Dance Research 5.2 (1987): 3–17.
DOI: 10.2307/1290620Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces the transmission of ancient Greek ideas of the dancing heavens through the works of the early Church Fathers to Marsilio Ficino’s writings in the 15th century, by which time dance is viewed as an image of order, harmony, and love. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “Dance Performance in the Late Middle Ages: A Contested Space.” In Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts. Edited by Elina Gertsman, 295–310. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Good introductory summary of the widely differing attitudes to dance, both negative and positive, in western Europe 1200–1500. Considers the effect of a written dance culture on the performance of dance post-1400 and how Guglielmo’s arguments in favor of dance drew on a tradition of scriptural authority from earlier centuries.
Find this resource:
Pennino-Baskerville, Mary. “Terpsichore Reviled: Antidance Tracts in Elizabethan Moralists.” Sixteenth Century Journal 22.3 (1991): 475–494.
DOI: 10.2307/2541471Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the arguments made against dance in Elizabeth I’s reign and discusses why moralists were so concerned with the widespread popularity of dancing at all levels of English society, in both the cities and the country. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Thesiger, Sarah. “The Orchestra of Sir John Davies and the Image of the Dance.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 277–304.
DOI: 10.2307/751166Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Article starts with an examination of representations of dance from late medieval literature to the 16th century. Thesiger then presents an analysis of Orchestra, explaining how Davies utilized the long association between dancing, music, cosmic love, and world harmony and shows that for Davies society is governed by dance and that the social order reflects the order of the dance. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Women

The contribution women made to dance prior to the 19th century has not received a great deal of attention by modern scholars. Partly this neglect is due to the fact that, just as in other areas, women’s activity tends to have disappeared from the historical record. Brooks 2007 addresses this imbalance, not only discussing the involvement of women as performers and patrons but also evaluating the social and political impact of their activities. The place of women in the early modern age, how much power they exercised, or even how much control they had over their own lives, is an ongoing debate among historians. In its consideration of women’s public dance performance in 15th-century Florence, Bryce 2001 takes the side of the debate that sees women’s activities as ultimately controlled by men. Nevile 2009 takes the opposing viewpoint, arguing that women were more autonomous and that their public dance performances were one avenue for them to display their moral virtue. For a discussion of the different movement qualities expected of women and men, see Fermor 1993 (cited under Iconography).

Brooks, Lynn Matluck, ed. Women’s Work: Making Dance in Europe Before 1800. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focuses on women’s involvement in dance as performers and patrons, all in a very public sphere. Three of the nine essays in this volume cover the period 1400 to 1650. Also see Daye 2007 and Sparti 2007 (both cited under Court Dancing).
Find this resource:
Bryce, Judith. “Performing for Strangers: Women, Dance, and Music in Quattrocento Florence.” Renaissance Quarterly 54.4.1 (2001): 1074–1107.
DOI: 10.2307/1261967Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Through an examination of dance performances in 15th-century Florence, Bryce argues that even though women did participate in public dance performances, their actions were still tightly controlled by men. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
Find this resource:
Nevile, Jennifer. “A Measure of Moral Virtue: Women, Dancing and Public Performance in Fifteenth-Century Italy.” In The Sounds and Sights of Performance in Early Music: Essays in Honour of Timothy J. McGee. Edited by Maureen Epp and Brian E. Power, 197–209. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Nevile argues that public dance performances were an important vehicle for women to demonstrate their moral virtue and that gender roles in 15th-century dance practice were not sharply divided or defined, with similarities being more important than the differences.