The ''ballo'' was an Italian dance form during the fifteenth century, most noted for its frequent changes of tempo and meter. The name ''ballo'' has its origin in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''ballō'', ''ballāre'', meaning "to dance", which in turn comes from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

"βαλλίζω" (''ballizō''), "to dance, to jump about". In

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

there is the Greek dance named

Ballos The Ballos ( el, Μπάλος) is a Greek folk dance and a form of sirtos. There are also different versions in other Balkan countries. The Ballos is of Greek origin, with ancient Greek elements. The name originates in the Italian ''ballo'' ...

Renaissance

During the

Quattrocento The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...

''balli'' were written by various composers, primarily the dance masters Domenico da Piacenza and Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, who also wrote treatises including choreographies to their works. Domenico wrote of the balli as dealing with four ''misure'': * The bassadanza, from the

basse danse The ''basse danse'', or "low dance", was a popular court dance in the 15th and early 16th centuries, especially at the Burgundian court. The word ''basse'' describes the nature of the dance, in which partners move quietly and gracefully in a ...

, consisting of what would now be labeled as a slow or * The quadernaria, one-sixth faster than the Bassadanza * The

saltarello The ''saltarello'' is a musical dance originally from Italy. The first mention of it is in Add MS 29987, a late-fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of Tuscan origin, now in the British Library. It was usually played in a fast tr ...

, two-sixths faster than the Bassadanza * The piva, twice as fast as the Bassadanza

Baroque

The

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

dance should be distinguished from the early Baroque ballo, which was enlarged to include vocal numbers by such composers as

Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is consider ...

('' Il ballo delle ingrate''), and Francesco Lambardi (''Una festa a ballo'').

References

External links

The 15th Century "balli" Tunes: A Look

Italian dances Renaissance dance {{medieval-music-stub

Renaissance

Baroque

See also

References

Further reading

External links