Dance and “The Other”: The Moresca
Anthony M. Cummings
[M]oresca is more a Bacchic than . . . pastoral term, or to put it in
Nietzschean terms, more Dionysian than Apollonian.1
The name moresca, which was given to many dances performed
in the course of the intermedii and sometimes also to the
intermedii themselves, points to the striving for exotic and bizarre
costumes, . . . The dances symbolized a plot, not infrequently a
battle between hostile forces.2
[I]n fifteenth-seventeenth-century Italy the moresca never mentions
Moors (or other ‘infidels’ or Christians), the choreographed
mattacino never appears to be danced by m atti . . . , and both
dances are only rarely a confrontation.3
A
rt historian Michael Baxandall observed that dance treatises
preserving choreographies for bassadanze and balli, reveal
considerably more than one might initially appreciate: dances
­
were semi-dramatic enterprises, the treatises modeling relationships among
39
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participants expressive o f psychological relationships.4Although Baxandall’s
observation prim arily concerns dancing by attendees for their own
enjoyment, it is applicable as well to the theatrical uses o f dance intended
for an audience. And o f all the dance traditions susceptible to metaphoric
decoding, one o f the richest in potential is the moresca.
I propose to revisit the moresca and offer an interpretation based upon
a compilation o f descriptions o f moresche in contemporary sources and
characterizations o f it by contemporary observers. I interpret the tradition as
an expression o f European anxiety about the non-European “Other,” given
that the moresca often (even typically) depicts a character-type emblematic o f
the “Other” and challenging o f Europeans’ sense o f their “European-ness” :
typically, there is a confrontation between a recognizably-European figure
(a Christian friar, Jason) and an exotic figure who symbolizes the challenge
to European identity.
M y presentation aims to be consistent with how the enterprise o f
scholarship ideally functions, especially at a conference like the one
where this paper was originally delivered, but sometimes does not, alas.
My observations are offered in the spirit o f colloquy with distinguished
colleagues, with whom I may disagree (and they with me). However, it
is only by means o f respectful colloquy that we shall be able to refine our
understanding o f any particular scholarly problem and approach a solution
to it. Specifically: I have written about the moresca before and adopted an
interpretation reasonably consonant, but not identical, with the traditional
interpretation. Subsequently, a revisionist interpretation o f the moresca
came to my attention.5 As often happens in such a situation, the revisionist
interpretation forced me to reconsider the argument I had advanced. That
interpretation was sufficiently at odds with my own that I felt compelled to
return to the primary sources and secondary literature. If, as a result, I still
S ev en teen th -C entury
B a l l e t — A m u l t i -a rt
spec ta c le
41
disagree somewhat with the revisionist interpretation, I do so respectfully,
and also with considerable trepidation.
The essence o f the revisionist interpretation is captured in the third o f
the quotations at the beginning o f my paper:
[I]n fifteenth-seventeenth-century Italy the moresca never mentions
Moors (or other ‘infidels’ or Christians), the choreographed mattacino
never appears to be danced by m a tti . . . , and both dances are only rarely
a confrontation.
M y questions about the validity o f these arguments stem from two
different kinds o f reading o f the primary sources, one literal and the other
metaphoric. We begin with the literal reading.
M usicologist Oliver Strunk once suggested that when arguments are
advanced on the basis o f particular evidence, only one discrepant datum
need to be produced— only one that contradicts those arguments, and
specifically constitutes an exception to the evidence in support o f them— for
such arguments to be challenged.6 The first two o f my primary texts given
immediately below are two contemporary accounts o f the same moresca,
which— in fact— depicts “the Turk” and the King o f M acedonia, each
encircled by some twenty armed men, who— in fact— engage in a skirmish
with staffs and lances. Also depicted is— in fact— a company o f Turks taken
by Christians, who are singing “Long live the Christian faith!”
. . . dopo desenar [were seen] dui cari triumphali: uno per il
Turcho, l'altro per il Re di Mazedonia; e ciascheduno haveva
circa venti homeni armati e molti fanti; e qui comenzorno una
scaramuccia cum bastoni; poy se retraseno adrieto e la fecero cum
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lancie. A quelli tri, che parse al signor Napulione [Orsini, Duke
of Bracciano] che facesero melgio, fu diviso uno palio de veluto
morello de tre canne, fodrato de cendal verdo, e in mezo de questo
palio era l’arma de Reverendissimo Monsignor San Sisto, il quale
haveva posto fora esso palio; ben che però prima la Sua Signoria
ne haveva messo fora sette altri, a diversi tempi, fra quali ge ne
fu du doro, uno di quali ge costò ducati 35 la canna. Ultimo
combatirono in sieme il capitone del Re de Mazedonia solo cum
il Turcho, et tandem il prese e menolo prezon per Roma.
. . . fornita la cena se fece una morescha digna. Venne doppo
uno in forma de Ambasador del turcho cum lettere de credentia
et uno interpetro, ove il Turcho se lamentava di Reverendissimo
Monsignor San Sisto che la Sua Signoria havesse incoronato questo
Re de Macedonia, cum sit, che quello Reame spectasse ad esso;
et che se esso non retractava che el dovessero far guerra in sieme.
E così rimaseno; dopo venete un altra livrea di Turchi presi da
chrestiani, cantando: viva la fede de Iesu Christo, cum il papa et el
cardinal San Sisto! Dopo venero dui et atezorono: dopo se fece una
altra moresca, su una altra foza che la prima, et essendo già presso
a cinque hore de nocte, ogni omo se levò. E ne la corte aparechiato
una caro triumphale, del quale usivano a una a una persone che
fecero la morescha, e fornita ogni omo tornò a casa.7
In la . . . commedia di Nicola [Grassi;? the Eutichid] per uno degli
intermezzi comparse una Italia, tutta lacerata da genti barbare,
et volendo dire alcuni lamentevoli versi, per due fiate, come per
duolo extremo, firmosse nel recitare, et cosi come smarrita, parti
dii palco, lasciando ai spettatori opinione che la si fussi persa nel
S ev en teen th -C entury
B a l l e t — A m u l t i-art sp e c t a c l e
dire. Ma nel representarsi gli altri giorni poi la commedia del
[Guidubaldo] Rugiero [da Reggio], fu remesso questo medesimo
intermezzo, e nel chiamare in suo ajuto Francesco Maria [della
Rovere, Duke of Urbino], cum bellissimo attizzare di moresca,
comparse uno armato cum nuda spada in mano, il quale come
a stoccate et altri colpi, cacciati d'intorno essa Italia tutti quelli
barbari che l’avevano saccheggiata, et tornato a lei pur a tempi
di suono in bellissima moresca, gli ripose una corona in testa, et
revestita di regai manto d’oro, l’acompagnò a medesimi tempi di
suono fuora di la scena, che fece bellissimo vedere.8
Le nostre Comedie sono ite bene, massime il Calandro: il quale
è stato honoratissimo d’un bello apparato . . . . La scena era finta
una contrada ultima tra il muro della terra e l’ultime case. Dal
palco in terra era finto naturalissimo il muro della città con dui
torroni, da capi della sala: su Tuno stavano li pifari, su l’altro i
trombetti: Le intromesse furono tali. La prima fu una moresca di
Jason: il quale comparse nella scena da un capo ballando, armato
all’antica, bello, con la spada et una targa bellissima. Dall’altro
furon visti. .. dui tori, tanto simili al vero, che alcuni pensorno che
fosser veri: che gittavano foco della bocca, etc. A questi s’accostò
il buon Jason, e feceli arare, posto loro il giogo e l’aratro. E poi
seminò i denti del dracone: e nacquero a poco a poco del palco
huomini armati all’antica, tanto bene, quanto credo io che si possa.
E questi ballarono una fiera moresca, per ammazzar Jason: e poi,
quando furon all’entrare, s’ammazzavano ad uno ad uno, ma non
si vedeano morire. Dietro ad essi se n’entrò Jason: e subito uscì
col vello d’oro alle spalle, ballando excellentissimamente. E questo
era il Moro, e questa fu la prima intromessa.9
43
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Si recitò la Comedia et fu molto bene pronuntiata; et per ogni
acto se li intermediò una musica di pifari, di cornamusi, di due
cornetti, di viole et leuti, dell’organetto che è tanto variato di
voce, che donò al Papa Monsignore Illustrissimo di bona memoria
[D’Aragona], et insieme vi era un flauto, et una voce che molto
bene si commendò: vi fu ancho un concerto di voci in musica, che
non comparse per mio juditio così bene come le altre musiche.
L'ultimo intermedio fu la moresca, che si rappresentò la Favola
di Gorgon, et fu assai bella.10
La dominica di sera, in Castello, li Sanesi fecero una moresca . . . ,
la quale fu di questa sorte . . . , che prima usci una donna, la quale
con certe stantie in octava rima pregò Venere che gli volesse dare
uno amante degno, e, cosi detto, se ne tornò. Dipoi a suono di
tamburino cominciò dal pavaglione uscire la moresca, che era
otto heremiti, li quali in habito griso, ballando, se menavano in
meggio incatenato uno Amore. Et così, poi che hebben[o] ballato
uno poco, si fermorno e cominciorno a parlare, e dissero che
questo era quello inimico del mondo che faceva tutti e mali, et
però lo voleano castigare: et qui, ognuno col suo bastone, ballando
ballando, cominciorno a darli, e lui ballando a parare con la
pharestra, perché quelli heremiti gli haveano tolto l’arco. Ballato
alquanto, questo Amore se inginochiò, e fece una oratione a
Venere sua matre, pregandola che lo liberasse dalle mani di costoro.
Et così fece per due volte. In ultimo comparse Venere, la quale
mandò quella donna che l’havea pregata che li desse lo amante
degno, per vedere de ingannare questi heremiti, et essa, accostatasi
a loro, li diede a bere un certo liquore che li fece dormire. Et così
Sev en teen th -C entury
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poi subito scatenò Amore, et gli rese l’arco et i strali, e tutti li
suoi ordegni, onde cominciò a saettare questi poveri frati, li quali
svegliati si lamentavano forte, et pur ballavano intorno ad Amore,
tutti innamorati di quella donna, alla quale cominciorno a dire
parole amorose, et essa a loro. In ultimo li pregò a dimostrare il
valor suo, accioché essa potesse conoscere s’elli erano degni dii suo
amore, onde essi, buttata via la schiavina, restarono giovani ben
vestiti in habito de galanti, e cominciorno a ballare un’altra volta
la moresca, al fin della quale la donna gli pregò che se mostrassero
quanto valevano in arme. E così presero una spada da due mani
per uno, et fecero una bella moresca con quella. Apresso tolsero
una targa da pugno, con la spada da una mano, et fecero l’altra
moresca, nella quale se ammazorno tutti, excetto che uno il quale
fu amante de quella donna.11
Other texts, both period descriptions o f the moresca and authoritative period
characterizations o f it, make reference to mythological creatures like the
satyr, and also— in fact— to battle among satyrs, who “danced a moresca as
they fought.” 12
Heri poi a concorrenza e per intermedij, in quella della Vincenza
si fece comparire Cupido, che liberò Clori, nimpha già convertita
in albero. Si vidde Giove che con una folgore d’alto ruinò la torre
d’un gigante. . . Cadmo seminò i denti, vide nascer et a combatter
quelli huomini armati . . . La Flaminia poi oltre aver . . . fatto
venire a Mantova quelle selve, monti, prati, fiumi e fonti d’Arcadia,
per intermedi della Favola introdusse Satiri, et poi certi maghi, et
fece alcune moresche.13
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. . . è bene . . . che l’arie e le musiche . . . siino . . . adornate . . . in
particolare di balli, . . . i quali balli overo moresche, se si faranno
apparir fuori dell’uso commune havrà più vago e del nuovo: come
per esempio la moresca per combattimento . . . ; sì come nella
pastorale di Fileno tre satiri vengono a battaglia, e con questa
occasione fanno il combattimento cantando e ballando sopra
unaria di moresca.14
As for the metaphoric readings o f the primary texts I propose, let me say, first,
that I should hope that the revisionist interpretations altogether convincing
corrective to extravagant, perhaps even fanciful, hypothesizing about the
meaning o f the moresca not precipitate a swing o f the pendulum too far in
the other direction. That is, the justified qualification o f received opinion
is a much needed corrective to hypotheses subscribed to, for example, in
Curt Sach s’s book,15 or in Ingrid Brainard’s paper for the International
Musicological Society meeting.16 All the same, I believe there is indeed a
metaphoric reading to be undertaken o f these texts that is not altogether
misaligned with the traditional interpretation o f the moresca.
Specifically: Even in the absence o f explicit reference to the Turk or Moor,
I wonder whether some moresche— perhaps even many— might not refer
obliquely or subliminally to, or have been interpreted as referring obliquely
to, Islamic peoples then at the borders o f Christian Europe. After all, the
descriptions o f the moresche reproduced here rather uniformly suggest an
anxiety about non-European “Otherness” (“barbarous peoples,” the children
o f the Hydras teeth, the Gorgon, Cupid) and a need metaphorically for the
European Duke o f Urbino, or Jason, or Perseus, or Christian friars to prevail
over that “Otherness.” And at this moment in European history, who best
fulfills the status o f “Other” ? The ultimate period “Other” was the Turk, the
Arab, the Moor: non-European, Islamic peoples, often referred to in precisely
Sev en teen th -C entury
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-a r t s p e c t a c l e
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this way— as “the" Turk, “the” Moor, etc.— which suggests an intentional or
unintentional depersonalization or even dehumanization o f them, which in
turn might then justify certain kinds o f action against them.
Thus I see the moresca as a metaphoric performative canvas upon which
Europeans could project, and momentarily resolve, their anxieties about
“ Otherness,” including about the ultimate period Other, Muslims. The
resolution is not literal, o f course, but indeed metaphoric, and can even
be ironic, whimsical, or ridiculous.17 Indeed, there is often an element o f
ridicule in the characterization o f the non-European Other o f the moresca,
or its French analogue: Howard Mayer Brown18 wrote o f “ [m]orisque
dancers” who “will not be admitted into the heaven imagined in the farce
Troysgalans et un badin because their movements are likely to break through
the floor . . . [T]he Depucelleur des nourrices refers to himself with . . . [(his)
‘ass also uncovered / like a moresca dancer’].” The Other is thus defeated by
means o f ridicule.
More on the subject o f Otherness, as expressed in the moresca specifically,
and dance more generally: in his book on music in Siena, Frank D ’Accone
cites a contemporary reference to a moresca as “a dance after the fashion o f
Ethiopia,” which thus associates yet another non-European people o f color
with the moresca.19 Daniel Heartz has written a wonderfully evocative paper
about a Turkish ballet from around 1550 favored at the court o f French
King Henry II: the so-called Branles o f M alta.20 Heartz observes that
European court entertainments o f the early-modern period often featured
exotic dances, which, however, seldom revealed a truly knowing command
o f exotic lore. Rather, they were the product o f the European imagination,
stimulated by visual material that had entered Western Europe.
I even believe that the instrumental usage typically associated with the
moresca can be interpreted metaphorically, and indeed, as only one o f many
instances (one o f the earliest) o f a distinctive instrumental usage that endures
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for centuries in European history and is often meant to be interpreted
metaphorically as symbolizing the non-European Other, specifically “‘the
Turk.” I am referring to the iconic use o f the tambourine, as described in
the findings o f musicologist Otto G om bosi.21
But before proceeding to a consideration o f the use o f the tambourine,
I first consider the iconic appearance o f other “exotic” percussion
instruments: bells. The substantiating primary text quoted immediately
below, in addition, extends the references confirming the Otherness o f the
tradition, since the moresca dancer mentioned appears with “his face daubed
with black” :
e mon ieusne aage, iay veu q u ’és bonnes compagnies, aprez le
soupper entroit en la salle, vn garçonnet machuré & noircy, le front
bandé d’un taffetats blanc ou iaulne, lequel auec des lambieres de
sonnettes dançoit la dance des Morisques, & marchant du long de
la salle, faisoit vne sorte de passage, puis retrogradant, reuenoit au
lieu ou il auoit commencé, & faisoit vn aultre passage nouueau,
& ainsi continuant, faisoit diuers passages bien aggreables aux
assistans: Macrobe en son troisieme liure des Saturnales chap.
14. fait reciter par Horus, que les nobles enfans & ieusnes filies
de bonnes maisons de Rome, dançoient auec Crotales, que Bade
commentateur interprete sonnettes, mais ceste interpretation
ne me plaist, & croirois plustost que Crotales fussent vn petit
tabourin de basque, garny de clochettes & sonnettes, tel que Ton
faisoit porter a la mere des Dieux, ou bien que ce fussent ce que
nous appellons cymbales & fer triangulaire, garny de boucles, dont
aulcuns iouent & font vn bruict aggreable pour accompagner la
vielle: Quoy quii en soit, ils tenoient a grand louange d’y sçavoir
bien dancer.22
Sev en teen th -C entury
B a l l e t — A m u l t i-art sp e c t a c l e
49
Now to the tam bourine. The Italian word “ tam buro” its diminutive
“ tamburino,” and their French equivalents have an Arabic etymological
origin: “tanbū r ”20 And as historical musicologists know, when percussion
instruments appear that are relatively uncommon in the European orchestral
context— bass drum, triangle, cymbals— they often signal “Janissary” music:
the music o f Turkish military bands. For example, the recording by Philip
Picketts superlative New London Consort24 o f the moresca contained
in Susato’s mid-sixteenth-century collection o f dance tunes deploys the
percussion instruments traditionally associated with the moresca, as suggested
by G om bosis quotation from his authoritative period source and the
contemporary description o f the 1521 moresca cited above; and there are
other contemporary descriptions o f the moresca one could cite that specify
the tambourine.25
I
also refer you to the overture to Mozarts comic opera The Abduction
from the Seraglio [ . . . the Harem]; note the Orientalized setting for the
plot— an Eastern harem— and the iconic metaphoric use o f the “ Triangolo ,”
“P iatti [‘cym bals’] ,” and “ Tamburo grande [‘bass drum’].” The celebrated
“Turkish march” in the fourth movement o f Beethovens 9th Symphony uses
the same complement o f percussion instruments.
More revealingly still, Rossini s Italian opera seria Maometto I I makes
use o f the same percussion instruments. Rossinis character Maometto is
the historical Sultan Mehmed the Second, conqueror o f Constantinople in
1453, who thereafter lays siege to the Italian city o f Negroponte. Two years
after settling in Paris, in 1826, Rossini reworked his earlier Italian opera
and then offered it to his new French public as The Siege o f Corinth, which
permitted a topical reference to the Greek war for independence from the
Ottoman Turks, then underway. (Once again Europeans battle the nonEuropean “Other,” this time literally). The Italian version o f the opera lacks
an overture, but the overture to the French version makes use, once again,
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o f the “Gran cassa” and "P iatti.” In the Italian version, when M aometto first
appears on stage, his entrance is announced by instrumental music that
features the by now predictable preferred instrumentation.
Once more, Europeans are engaged in an encounter with the nonEuropean Islamic other, and R ossinis instrum entation, once more, is
respectful o f time-honored tradition.
I should like to return to the matter o f the possibility o f metaphoric
readings o f such spectacles and consider a parallel case, demonstrably
susceptible to a diversity o f interpretations, literal and metaphoric, even in
its own time. The documentation increases one’s confidence that the moresca,
similarly, could also have been invested with a multiplicity o f contemporary
interpretations. I am referring to a similar staged performance, in this case
the 1514 Feast o f San Giovanni in Florence. Here immediately below I have
given the most important contemporary texts attesting the spectacle, both
contemporary descriptions o f it and the text o f the explanatory song sung
on that occasion.
. . . non so da che capo mi fare a dire quello che la sera havemo,
cossa veramente giamai non più veduta, rapresentando il triumfo di
Camillo,. . . [N]eveniva . . . uno . . . caro di rotele, pavesi e molte
arme predate da i nimici. . . . Seguiva . . . un caro dove era sopra
una ocha, che fu causa che romani sentirono lo [Gauls] scalare
del Captiolio. Apresso a questi seguiva 11 cari, che significavano
di diversi atti di questo triumphante Camillo: quale era caricho
di veste, . . . qual di arme, e tutto erano spoglie de i nimici, . . .
Seguiva apresso questi più eminente e magior caro . . . , di prigioni
. armati e bellissime spoglie, . . . Ultimamente ne veniva, sopra un
più che ogni altro grande triumpho, el victorioso Camillo, sopra
quale triumpho era e cantori cantando.26
Sev en teen th -C entury
B a l l e t — A m u l t i -a r t
specta cle
51
in Piazza vi venne da venti Carri trionfali; cosa ricca e magna: e intorno a
Carri vera circa a mille cavagli, tutti bene a ordine come San Giorgi.27
Contempla in quanta altezza se’ salita,
felice, alma Fiorenza,
poiché dal ciel discesa è in tuo presenza
la Gloria e cogli esempi a sé t’invita;
la quale ha tal potenza
ch’a’ morti rende vita,
ond’ella il morto già Cammillo mostra
viver ancor per fama all’età nostra.
Quell’è Furio Cammillo, il gran romano
per cui Roma esaltata
fu tanto, che l’invidia scellerata
usò ‘nver lui la rabbia, benché invano;
perché la patria ingrata
il consiglio non sano
conobbe poi che gli levò la soma,
a fu costretta a dir: per te son Roma.
Le pompe trionfai nel tuo cospetto,
le barbariche spoglie,
le tempie ornate delle sacre foglie
mostron le laude sue; ma tal concetto
una parola accoglie,
poiché lui solo e detto
della patria, per l’opre alte e leggiadre,
primo liberator, secondo padre.
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Manca la vita in un tanto superba,
mancon le sue sante ale:
la nostra dea contr’ a l’ordin fatale
trae’l buon fuor del sepolcro e ‘n vita il serba;
la virtù sola vale
contr’alla morte acerba,
e senza lei cercar Gloria non giova;
ma seguendo virtú, costei si trova.
Come vedere, seco insieme vanno
la dea Minerva e Marte,
che colle spada, con scienza e arte
all’uom mortale immortai vita danno;
e le vergate carte
lo risto ron del danno,
perché come l’ailor foglia non perde,
la storia e poesia sempre sta verde.
Dunque colui che ‘n questo mondo brama
col generoso cuore
vincer l’ invidia e acquistare onore,
né seco seppellir la propria fama,
porti alla patria amore;
perché colui che l’alma,
e con giustizia difende e governa,
in cielo ha vita e gloria al mondo eterna28
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Period texts document that such a seemingly innocent event was open to a
variety o f contemporary interpretations: the French reportedly interpreted
it as disrespectful o f them; Lorenzo de Medici, then his family’s principal
representative in Florence, wrote to his envoy in France expressly so as to
clarify “to what end this triumph was done . . . in fact it alludes to nothing
other than the exile and then recall o f the house o f Medici.”
El quale triumpho, per essere contra Franzesi, è stato di qua
notato da alchuno homo da bene, et detto che è da advertirci per
rispecto de’ Franzesi, che sono molto sensitivi, et quando V.S. lo
potessi mutare, o subtacere il nome, non sarebbe male; quella è
prudentissima, et credo haverà ben pensato tutto; questo gli ho
detto, perchè Monsignore Reverendissimo di Ferrara me ne ha
advertito questa mattina, che dice cognoscere in qualche parte la
natura Gallica. Io ne ho detto con Monsignore Reverendissimo
nostro, et anchora lui dice, che quando si potessi mutare, non
sarebbe male; tamen tutto sia rimesso ad la prudentia di V.S29
. . . interpretando ad che fine sia facto questo triompho . . . in
facto non allude se non alla cacciata et dipoi alla revocatione della
casa de Medici.30
Lorenzo’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, at precisely this time
Machiavelli was drafting his treatise The Prince, which urges the Latinate
Italians to expel the barbarous Gallic Other from north of the Alps.31
This spectacle is the triumph o f the historical Roman figure Camillus,
and yet it was clearly capable o f supporting a variety o f interpretations
reflective o f contemporary anxieties that have nothing to do with the actual
subject matter depicted; the moresca, similarly, although it need not explicitly
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depict Europeans and Moors, and usually does not, nonetheless lends itself
to oblique interpretation in such terms.
Finally, to conclude, it is not only with respect to its instrumental
usage that the moresca may be interpreted as only one o f the earliest
manifestations o f an enduring tradition in European history. A concern—
even an obsession— with the Islamic “Other” runs throughout the history
o f European thought and music.32 From 1669 is Lempio punito, an opera
on a libretto by Pippo Acciaiuoli and Giovanni Apolloni, with music by
Alessandro Melani, which is the earliest known musical treatment o f the Don
Juan material; to various other intermedii explicitly called for, or assumed,
must be added, also in intermedii between the acts, dances o f Moors and
monsters.33 Daniel Heartz observed that more than a century o f spectacles
similar to that enacted in the Branles o f M alta prepared the way for the
“Turkish Ceremony” o f Molière and Lully.34 M ore than once, one recalls,
Rossini authored a masterful comic opera on the theme o f the European/
Islamic encounter: not only the opera seria Maometto II, but also The Italian
G irl in Algiers and The Turk in Italy.
And Verdi’s A ida has been knowingly, sensitively analyzed with respect
to its “typological relationship” to Rossinis opera seria Semiramide, evident in
the “Orientalizing archaeology” that characterizes both.35 At the beginning
o f act II o f A ida is a famous moment, “a lyric chorus, with the slaves who
robe Amneris and the dance o f Ethiopian M oors.” The scene, prescribed in
a letter from Verdi to his librettist Ghislanzoni— even as far as particulars o f
meter and the dance o f the Moors— has a pointed antecedent in the “Chorus
and cavatina” that open the second part o f act I o f Rossini’s Semiramide.
The exotic side o f the character o f the title role in Rossinis Semiramide
had already been indicated by the instrumental and choral design that
accompanies her entrance onto the stage in the scene o f the consecration
o f the temple o f Belo, which is a species of “fa ndango” whose exotic modal
S ev en teen th -C entury
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m u l t i
-art spec t a c le
55
character is accentuated. The Hispanic or Iberian tone could have been
suggested by the personality o f the interpreter o f the rôle, Isabella Colbran,
successively Rossinis mistress and spouse, but it could also be that Rossini
himself was merely utilizing unique “ethnic” musical cues o f which he was
aware. A similar impulse was such that Verdi, in suggestions to Ghislanzoni,
requested that the “Ethiopian youth” intertwine their dance “to the sound
o f castanets.”
Therefore, in its expression o f a sublimated anxiety about Otherness and
Europeans’ need to prevail over it by means o f ridicule or mock combat; in
its iconic use o f a distinctive instrumentation— associated thereafter in the
European musical imagination with the Oriental seraglio or harem, or the
Turkish conquerors o f Constantinople who subsequently threatened much
o f southeastern Europe— the moresca is an early entrant into the tradition
o f European musical depictions o f Orientalism. When the literal encounter
between European Christians and Arabic or Turkish Muslims first occurred,
Western anxiety about it understandably, if tragically, was unleashed virtually
simultaneously, and fifteen-hundred years later we are still living with its
political and artistic after-effects.
Endnotes
1
Nino Pirrotta, “Scelte poetiche di Monteverdi,” Nuova rivista musicale italiana
II (1968), pp. 3-64, at p. 27 η. 44.
2
Pirrotta, “Intermedium,” Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel and
Basel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1949-73), vol. VI, cols. 1310-26, at col. 1313.
3
Barbara Sparti, “The moresca and mattaccino in Italy— circa 1450-1630,”
PROCEEDINGS / SYMPOSIUM MORESKA: PAST AND PRESENT ([3-8
July], 2001; KORČ ULA), ed. Elsie Ivancich Dunin (Zagreb, Croatia: Institute
of Ethnology and Folklore Research, ©2002), pp. 1-11, at p. 9.
56
4
A ntho ny
M.
C um m in gs
Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fift eenth Century Italy: A Primer in the
Social History o f Pictorial Style (London, New York, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, © 1972), pp. 77-78.
5
Barbara Sparti, “Introduction” and “The Moresca and Mattaccino in Italy—
circa 1450-1630,” Daniel Tércio, ed., CONTINENTS IN MOVEMENT
Proceedings o f the International Conference THE M EETING OF CULTURES IN
DANCE HISTORY/CONTINENTES EM MOVIMENTO. Actas da Conferencia
Internacional “O ENCONTRO D E CULTURAS NA HISTÓRIA DA DANÇA. ”
October, 15/18, Outubro, 1998 Oeiras—Portugal Universidade Técnica de
Lisboa. FACULDADE DE MOTRICIDADE HUMANA. Departamento
de Dança (Cruz Quebrada: Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. Faculdade de
Motricidade Humana. Servido de Ediçoes, 1999), pp. 189-90, 191-99; and
Sparti, “The moresca and mattaccino in Italy— circa 1450-1630.”
6
Strunk, “Church Polyphony Apropos of a New Fragment at Grottaferrata,”
Essays on Music in the Western World (New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
Inc., © 1974), pp. 44-54, at p. 54.
7
Filippo Clementi, Il carnevale romano nelle cronache contemporanee: con
illustrazioni riprodotte da stampe e quadri dell’epoca, 2 vols.: vol. I, “Dalle
origini al secolo XVH” (Rome: Tipografia Tiberina di F. Setth/E. Loescher &
C°, 1899 [2nd ed. Città di Castello: Edizioni R.O.R.E.-NIRUF, 1939]); vol.
II, “Sec. XVIII-XIX” (Città di Castello: Edizioni R.O.R.E.-NIRUF, 1938),
pp. 74-75, 77-78.
8
Federico Veterani? [author, uncertain] manuscript Urbinate-Vaticano 490, in
Alessandro d’Ancona, Origini del teatro italiano, 2 vols. (Rome: Bardi editore,
1971 [ed. anastatica secondo Tedizione Loescher 1891]), vol. II, p. 105.
9
Baldassar Castiglione, Le lettere, vol. I [1497— marzo 1521], ed. Guido La
Rocca, Tutte le Opere di Baldassar Castiglione, vol. I, I Classici Mondadori
(Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1978), pp. 344-46; and Pirrotta, “Intermezzo,”
S ev en teen th -C entury
B a l l e t — A m u l t i -art s p e c t a c l e
57
Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo, Sotto gli auspici della Fondazione Giorgio Cini,
9 vols. (Rome: Casa editrice Le Maschere, © 1954-62), voi. VII.
10 Ludovico Ariosto, Commedie: La Cassaria,, I Suppositi, a cura di Luigina Stefani
(Milan: Musià, 1997), “Rappresentazioni cinquecentesche,” pp. 72-73.
11
Baldassar Castiglione, Le lettere, pp. 714, 716-18.
12 See Bianca Maria Galanti, “Ancora sulla moresca,” LaresXV (Florence: Edizione
del Centro di alti studi, 1949), p. 46: “In Italia, il Rinascimento sostituisce
l’elemento Turco o Moro della moresca di tipo popolare con l’Eroe o col Dio
della mitologia pagana e del ricordo dei Turchi o Mori non rimane ormai che
il nome di Moresca.” For an example of such substitutions, see ibid., p. 49: “I
Suppositi . . . was performed in February 1509. Here too the usual intermezzi
that «furono tuti canti et musiche, et in fine de la comedia, Vulcano con Ciclopi
baterno saete a sono de piffari, battendo il tempo cum martelli et cum sonagli
che tenivano a le gambe, . . . »
13 Pirrotta, “Intermezzo,” col. 575.
14 Warren Kirkendale, Emilio de Cavalieri, “Gentiluomo Romano,” «Historiae
Musicae Cultores» LXXXVI (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, MMI), p. 259. For
yet another example of a “moresca representing a fight,” see Pirrotta, Music
and Theatrefrom Poliziano to Monteverdi (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982), p. 229.
15 Sachs, World history o f the Dance, trans. Bessie Schönberg (New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc. [1937]), pp. 333-41.
16 Brainard, “An Exotic Court Dance and Dance Spectacle of the Renaissance:
La M o re sca ,”International Musicological Society/International Gesellschaft
für Musikwissenschaft/Société internationale de musicologie, Report o f the
Twelfth Congress, Berkeley 1977, ed. Daniel Heartz and Bonnie Wade (Basel,
Kassel, London: Bärenreiter/The American Musicological Society, 1981),
pp. 715-29.
58
A nthony
M.
C um m in gs
17 Just as Osama Bin Laden, whom the American military has not been able to
locate, is ridiculed on American television programs like Saturday Night Live,
as a way of projecting and metaphorically resolving comparable anxieties about
the ultimate Other in contemporary American consciousness: the mastermind
of September 11 (also a Muslim).
18 Howard Mayer Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 1400-1550
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, © 1963), p. 162.
19 D ’A ccone, The Civic Muse: Music and Musicians in Siena during the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp.
131-33.
20
Daniel Heartz, “Un ballet turc a la cour d’Henri II: Les branles de Malte,”
Baroque: revue internationale V (1972), pp. 17-23. See also Heartz, “Sources
and Forms of the French Instrumental Dance in the Sixteenth Century” (Ph.D.
diss., Harvard Univ. 1957), pp. 367 (“D ’Estrée, Tiers livre de danseries, 1559.
Ensemble / f. 2’ 3. Le Roy, ibid. [i.e., Le Roy, Briefe . . . instruction, 1568.]:
‘The seconde Branle of Malte’, f. 25’ / Arbeau, Orchésographie, 1589: ‘Air du
branle de Malte’, f. 82”) and 387-88 (“Le Roy, A Brief and easye instruction to
learne the tablature I London, 1568. f. 25’ The seconde Branle of Malte D ’Estrée
III: ‘(Bransle de Malthe) 3.’, f. 2’ / Arbeau, Orchésographie, 1589: ‘Branle de
Malte, f. 82”).
21
“ [T]he moresque (which was a masked dance) seems to have been the particular
province of pipes and tabors, 'pifferi e tamburini.’ This dance seems to have
called for a special style of tabor playing, for the chronicler Molinet mentions
the tarmbourin ‘sonant à maniere de moresque’ (‘sounding in the style of the
moresque’).” Otto Gombosi, “About Dance and Dance Music in the Late
Middle Ages,” The Musical Quarterly XXVII/3 (July 1941), pp. 289-305, at
p. 290.
22
Par Thoinot arbeau demeurant a Lengres, ORCHESOGRAPHIE. E T TRAICTE
E N FORM E D E D1ALOGVE. PAR LEQVEL TOVTES PERSONNES
S ev en teen th -C entury
Ballet— A
m u lt i
-art
specta cle
59
PEW EN T facilement apprendre & practiquer l ’honneste exercice des dances.
(Imprimé audiet Lengres: par Iehan des preyz Imprimeur. & Libraire, tenant
sa boutique proche l’Eglise Sainct Mammes dudict Lengres., M.D.LXXIX.),
p. 94r
For assistance on this matter, I am grateful to Professor Benjamin Brinner of
the Department of Music at the University of California at Berkeley.
Tielman Susato (c. 1500-c. 1561), Dansereye 1551. New London Consort,
Philip Pickett. Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre 436 131-2 (London: The Decca
Record Company Limited, © · 1993), track 38.
See Galanti, pp. 47-48: “In Ferrara we can document the existence of the
moresca for around 20 years. In 1491 comes as spouse of Don Alfonso, son of
Ercole, Anna, daughter of Galeazzo Visconti. From a letter written, dated 14
February, from the Milanese ambassadors we know that three comedies were
performed, after which as many intermezzi were made to follow, of which
interests us . . . the third, in which were: «Certain dressed more ornately in
the form of villains, who . . . at the first sound of a tambourine did another
moresca, . . . »”
Marino Sanuto, I diarii, 59 volumes (Venice: Visentini 1879-1903), vol. XVIII,
cols. 313-14.
Cesare Guasti, Le feste di S. Giovanni Batista in Firenze (Florence, 1908), p.
29.
Riccardo Bruscagli, ed., Trionfi e canti carnascialeschi toscani del Rinascimento,
2 vols. (Rome, 1986), vol. I, pp. 74-75.
8 June 1514 letter from Baldassare Turini da Pescia to Lorenzo di Piero di
Lorenzo de’ Medici; William Roscoe, Vita epontificato di Leone X, ed. L. Bossi
(Milan, 1816-17), vol. VI, no. 113.
Lorenzo to his envoy in France, Francesco Pandolfini; A. Giorgetti, “Lorenzo
de’ Medici, Duca d’Urbino, e Jacopo d’Appiano,” Archivio storico italiano ser.
4/vol. Vili (1881), pp. 222-38 and 305-25, at p. 236.
60
E d ited
B y:B arbara
G ra m m en ia ti
30 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter XXVI: “Exhortatio ad capessendam
Italiam in libertamque a barbaris vendicandam [‘Exhoration to Take Italy and
Free Her from the Hands of the Barbarians’].
31
See Giorgio Pestelli, “The discovery of the fabulous East,” in The Age o f Mozart
and Beethoven, trans. Eric Cross (Cambridge: The Press Syndicate of the
University of Cambridge), pp.52-56. See also Heartz, “Sources and Forms of
the French Instrumental Dance in the Sixteenth Century,” pp. 237-38, n. 11:
“Turkish or Mohammedan subject matter is deep-rooted in the dance and music
of Western music, and was to furnish material for countless works, of course,
throughout the century of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and, indeed, throughout
the century of Die Entführung. The Moresca is but one manifestation, albeit
the most prominent one in the fifteenth century, of the degree to which things
Mohammedan in general and the old struggle between Mohammaden [sic;
recte: ‘Mohammedan] and Christian in particular had penetrated the public
consciousness.”
32 Nino Pirrotta, Don Giovannis Progress. A Rake Goes to the Opera, trans. Harris
S. Saunders Jr. (New York: Marsilio Publishers Corp., © 1994), pp. 25-38 and
the accompanying endnotes.
33
Heartz, “Un ballet turc a la cour d’Henri II: Les branles de Malte.”
34
Nino Pirrotta, “Semiramis e Amneris, Un anagramma o quasi,” Sceltepoetiche di
musicisti. Teatro, poesia e musica da Willaert a Malapiero, Musica critica (Venice:
Marsilio editori s.p.a., © 1987), pp. 339-48 [originally in II melodramma
italiano dell’Ottocento. Studi e ricerche per Massimo M ila (Turin: Einaudi,
1977)].