Genesis of A Tradition

Feast of Salomé

Engraving by Israel(Israhel) van Meckenem, [149-?].The Biblical figure of Salomé, who danced for her stepfather Herod and received the head of John the Baptist on a platter in return, was a popular subject of Renaissance art.Here, in one of the collection's very oldest objects, the theme appears in the upper vignettes, while the main image depicts a contemporary scene of dancing and music-making.Cia Fornaroli Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

Portrait of Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta at the Age of 46

Plate from Caroso's treatise Il Ballarino, published in Venice in 1581.A prominent Italian dancing master, Caroso published two of the chief sources of late Renaissance social dance--Il Ballarino (The Dancer) (1581) and the revised and expanded Nobiltà di dame (The Nobility of Ladies) (1600).Generously illustrated and magnificently printed, with dedications to ladies of high rank, they give the choreography and music for more than a hundred dances performed by the Italian nobility.Il Ballarino was the first printed treatise on dancing and choreography, and thus, unlike the fifteenth-century treatises by Domenico da Piacenza, Antonio Cornazano, and Guglielmo Ebreo, which were in manuscript form, it circulated beyond a small circle of disciples and connoisseurs.Although Caroso's book had a pedagogical aspect, he went beyond the emphasis of earlier treatises on steps and body postures to incorporate history.At the same time, he used layout, ornament, and design to enhance the graphic quality of the book.Cia Fornaroli Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

La Guerra d'Amore (The War of Love)

Etching by Jacques Callot, [Florence], 1615.Performed by knights on horseback, seventeenth-century horse ballets combined eye-filling spectacle with music, poetry, and elaborate choreography.The War of Love, staged for Cosimo II de' Medici in 1615, took place in the Piazza Santa Croce of Florence and featured a mock battle and tournament.In this etching, one of several by Jacques Callot, African and Asian floats designed by Giulio Parigi bring an exotic note to the pageantry.Horse ballets, often staged by ballet masters imported from Italy, became extremely popular in France and Austria during the seventeenth century.As in Florence, these elaborate performances, involving hundreds of participants, offered powerful assertions of state and dynastic power.Cia Fornaroli Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

Cosimo Ticcio, Manoscritto di balletti composti da Giovannino e Il Lanzino e Il Papa; scritto da Cosimo Ticcio (Manuscript of ballets composed by Giovannino, Il Lanzino, and Il Papa).  [155-?].  This mid-sixteenth-century manuscript, written by Cosimo Ticcio and one of the oldest objects in the Cia Fornaroli Collection, contains descriptions of fifteen dances, with an introduction by a Florentine dancing master who calls himself "Il Papa" (or "The Pope").  Two of the dances are his; two others are by "Il Lanzino," whose nickname may indicate that, like the mercenary soldiers known as lanzichenecchi (Lansquenets), he was from Germany or northern Europe.  The remaining eleven dances are attributed to "Giovannino" (Little John), dancing master to Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the great patron of Florentine art.  Although no music is given, the titles suggest that several of the dances were accompanied by popular songs.  This collection is a rare source documenting the transition from the fifteenth-century dances of Domenico da Piacenza and Guglielmo Ebreo to the late sixteenth-century balletti of Fabritio Caroso and Cesare Negri.  The first page is displayed along with Walter Toscanini's handwritten transcription of the introduction, signed "Il Papa."  Cia Fornaroli Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

Cesare Negri, Le gratie d'amore, di Cesare Negri Milanese, detto il Trombone, professore di ballare, opera nova, et vaghissima, divisa in tre trattati (The Graces of Love, by Cesare Negri, Milanese, called "The Trombone," teacher of dancing, a new and most admirable work, divided into three treatises).  Engravings by Leone Pallavicino after drawings by Giovanni Mauro della Rovere.Milan, 1602.  Digitized images of the title page and selected plates.  This splendid treatise, published in Milan in 1602, includes social dances as well as a group of theatrical dances composed in 1599 for the entry into Milan of the Spanish Infanta Isabella and her husband, Albert, the Archduke of Austria.  Couple dances predominate among the social dances, but Negri also describes two-couple dances, virtuoso step combinations for male performers, and complex spatial patterns such as the snail figure known as "winding up the ball of yarn," all in unusually rich detail.  Sixteenth-century Italian dance masters traveled widely, and Italian influence was evident throughout Europe, especially in the elaborate entertainments that were a feature of court life.  The vivid images are by the well-known Milan painter Giovanni Mauro della Rovere.  Cia Fornaroli Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

Arcangelo Tuccaro, Trois dialogues de l'exercice de savter, et voltiger en l'air.  Auec les figures qui seruent à la parfaicte demonstration & intelligence dudict art.  Par le Sr. Archange Tvccaro, de l'Abruzzo, au Royaume de Naples (Three dialogues on the practice of jumping and vaulting in the air.  With figures that will serve as a perfect demonstration and understanding of said art.  By Sieur Archange Tuccaro, of the Abruzzo, in the Kingdom of Naples).Paris, 1599.  Digitized images of selected plates.  An acrobat and ballet master, Tuccaro was hofspringmeister to the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and subsequently master of ceremonies and choreographer to the French court in Paris, where this manual in dialogue form was published.  The emphasis on gymnastics, both in the text and the accompanying images, suggests the rapid professional development of theatrical dance in the late sixteenth century.Lincoln Kirstein Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

Antoine Arena, Ad suos compagnones studiantes qui sunt de persona friantes, bassas dansas et branlos practicantes, nouuiellos quamplurimos mandat:  his posterioribus diebus grassis augmentatus, & a mandatis Conardorum Abbatis YO, de Rothomago, in lucem enuoyatus / Antonius De Arena Provencalis de Bragardissima Villa de Soleriis (Antonius De Arena, Provençal of the most Gallant Town of Soliès, enlarged in these recent meat-eating days and ordered into the light by Conard, Abbot of [the Order of Y], in Rouen, sends to his student companions, ardent of person and practitioners of bassedanses and branles, all possible greetings).Rouen, 1670.  First published in 1529, decades before Fabritio Caroso's Il Ballarino (1581) and Cesare Negri's Gratie d'amore (1602), this treatise remained popular reading into the eighteenth century.  Written in macaronic Latin--a mixture of Latin and the vernacular (in this case Provençal) associated with burlesque literature--Arena addresses his fellow law students, explaining in detail the choreography of nearly sixty dances (nearly all examples of the bassedanse).  At the same time he urges them to mind their manners, improve their conversation, and master the rules of genteel deportment, promising success with the ladies as a reward.  Cia Fornaroli Collection, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.

Lotto Lotti, L'idea di tutte le perfezioni, introduzione al balletto de' serenissimi principi Francesco, e Antonio Farnesi, fatto rappresentare dal sereniss. sig. dvca di Parma nel svo nvovo teatrino, in occasione de' felicissimi sponsali del serenissimo sig. principe Odoardo svo primogenito, con la serenissima signora principessa Dorotea Sofia di Neobvrgo (The Idea of All Perfections, introduction to the ballet of the Most Serene Princes Francesco and Antonio Farnesi, represented on the order of the Most Serene Duke of Parma in his new small theater, on the occasion of the felicitous nuptials of his eldest son, the Most Serene Prince Odoardo, with the Most Serene Princess Dorotea Sofia of Neuburg).Piacenza, 1690.  This scenario, with its six etchings, records a magnificent court ballet staged in the duchy of Parma by the ruling Farnese family.  The choreography was by Giacomo Duridò and the scenery by the brothers Ferdinando and Francesco Galli Bibiena, founders of the celebrated family of stage designers and architects.  Appointed Ranuccio II's chief painter and architect, Ferdinando worked at the ducal courts of Parma and Piacenza for nearly thirty years, providing the scene decorations for numerous theatrical entertainments (such as this ballet).  His most important innovation was the scena veduta in angolo--theatrical settings that used diagonal (as opposed to single-point) perspectives to create spectacular architectural illusions, Baroque fantasies of soaring vaults and arches, sweeping curvilinear balconies and balustrades, and a profusion of elaborate decoration.  For the next hundred years, members of the Bibiena family built theaters and decorated royal festivities throughout Europe, their work inspiring stage designers for centuries.  This etching displayed shows the nature deity Cybele accompanied by her ladies.  Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, Jerome Robbins Dance Division.