(b Piacenza, c1400; d ?Ferrara, c1476). Italian dancing-master, dance theorist and composer. He taught dancing to Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro and to Antonio Cornazano, who referred to him as ‘mio solo maestro e compatriota’ in his Libro dell’ arte del danzare. As far as is known, Domenico spent the years of his youth and early maturity in Piacenza. His first contact with his future patron, the Marchese Leonello d’Este, appears to have been made on the occasion of the prince’s wedding to Margherita Gonzaga, in Ferrara in 1435, which Domenico is said to have attended. He is then cited in the registers of the mandati of the Este court in 1439, 1441, 1445, 1447 and 1450 as ‘spectabilis miles’ and ‘familiaris noster’; Guglielmo Ebreo and Antonio Cornazano refer to him as ‘dignissimo cavaliere’ and ‘cavagliero aurato’, probably in acknowledgment of his having been made Knight of the Golden Spur. After a five-year interval, centred mainly on the Sforza court in Milan, Domenico returned to Ferrara; in 1456 he was paid the substantial monthly salary of 20 lire marchesani, and he continues to be listed under the salariati of the Este court with payments going up to 31 December 1472. His name appears intermittently in the Ferrarese records until 1475. He was married to Giovanna Trotti, ‘domicilla di corte’, offspring of a highly respected and politically active Ferrarese family.
Recognized by his contemporaries as ‘saltatorum princeps’, Domenico was frequently invited to choreograph dances for important courtly celebrations. In 1455 he created and took part in the elaborate dances for the wedding of Tristano Sforza and Beatrice d’Este in Milan at the request of Francesco Sforza. In the same year, assisted by Guglielmo Ebreo, he choreographed ‘moresche e molti balli’ for the festivities in Milan in honour of ‘la duchessa de Calabria’, probably celebrating Ippolita Sforza’s engagement to Alfonso of Aragon. Both dancing-masters collaborated again on the occasion of the wedding of Pino de’ Ordelaffi and Barbara Manfredi in Forlì in May 1462.
Domenico’s important treatise, De arte saltandi e choreas ducendii (F-Pn it.972, c1445), sets the example for all later dance instruction manuals: the first half contains the theory of dancing and the second the dances themselves (balli and bassadanzas). He was the first to discuss the aesthetics of dancing, frequently referring to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. The chapters on dancing style, use of space, musical accompaniment and dance technique as a means of artistic creativity are particularly important. Each of the four basic metres (bassadanza, saltarello, quadernaria and piva) has its own characteristic step unit (tempo) but all good dancers should interchange the tempi as the choreography requires, resulting in complex and expressive patterns. In the second part the dances included range from purely ornamental ones for two or three people to elaborate creations for 12 or more; several are based on a thematic floor pattern (e.g. Tesara, Gelosia, Verçepe), while others use gesture for dramatic effect. Some, like Belriguardo, Belfiore and Leoncello, make explicit connection to the Este family and its residences. Unlike the French and Burgundian choreographies that are notated in a step tablature, Domenico’s are described in words. Among his dances are the first two true ballets: La Mercanzia and La Sobria. Both are miniature dance-dramas, employing all the steps and movements of the dancer’s repertory.
De arte saltandi e choreas ducendii (MS, c1420, F-Pn it.972); ed. D.R. Wilson: Domenico of Piacenza (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS ital. 972) (Cambridge, 1988), and transcr. and trans. A.W. Smith: Fifteenth-Century Dance and Music: Twelve Transcribed Italian Treatises and Collections in the Tradition of Domenico da Piacenza, Dance and Music, iv (Stuyvesant, NY, 1995)
N. Faloci-Pulignani: Otto bassedanze di M. Guglielmo da Pesaro e di M. Domenico da Ferrara (Foligno, 1887) [based on I-FOLd]V. Maletic, ed.: Anello, Ballo composed by Domenico of Ferrara (New York, 1965)I. Brainard, ed.: 3 Court Dances of the Early Renaissance (New York, 1971–2) [incl. Domenico’s Verçepe]I. Brainard, ed.: ‘La fia Guilmin in canto/Filia Guilielmino in canto (Domenico/A. Cornazano)’, The Musical Manuscript Montecassino 871, ed. I. Pope and M. Kanazana (Oxford, 1978), 531–3
C. Poggiali: Memorie per la storia letteraria di Piacenza, i (Piacenza, 1789), 34
O. Gombosi: ‘About Dance and Dance Music in the Late Middle Ages’, MQ, xxvii (1941), 289–305
A. Michel: ‘The Earliest Dance Manuals’, Medievalia et humanistica, iii (1945), 117–31
I. Brainard: Die Choreographie der Hoftänze in Burgund, Frankreich und Italien im 15. Jahrhundert (diss., U. of Göttingen, 1956)
O. Kinkeldey: ‘Dance Tunes of the Fifteenth Century’, Instrumental Music: Cambridge, MA, 1957, 3–30, 89–152
D. Bianchi: ‘Tre maestri di danza alla corte di Francesco Sforza’, Archivio storico lombardo, 9th ser., ii (1962–4), 290–99
D. Heartz: ‘A 15th-Century Ballo: Rôti bouilli joyeux’, Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. J. LaRue and others (New York, 1966/R), 359–75
I. Brainard: ‘Bassedanse, Bassadanza and Ballo in the 15th Century’, Dance History Research: Perspectives from Related Arts and Disciplines, ed. J.W. Kealiinohomoku (New York, 1970), 64–79
B. Sparti: ‘Music and Choreography in the Reconstruction of Fifteenth-Century Balli: Another Look at Domenico’s Verçepe’, Fifteenth Century Studies, x, ed. G.R. Mermier and E.E. DuBruck (Ann Arbor, 1984), 177–94
A.W. Smith: ‘Studies in 15th-Century Italian Dance: Belriguardo in due: a Critical Discussion’, Proceedings [Society of Dance History Scholars] (1987), 86–105
D.R. Wilson: ‘“Damnes” as Described by Domenico, Cornazano and Guglielmo’, Historical Dance, ii/6 (1988–91), 3–9
V. Daniels and E. Dombois: ‘Die Temporelationen im Ballo des Quattrocento: spekulative Dialoge um den labyrintischen Rätselkanon De la arte di ballare et danzare des Domenico da Piacenza’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, xiv (1990), 181–247
M. Padovan, ed.: Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo: Pesaro 1987 (Pisa, 1990) [incl. A.W. Smith: ‘Una fonte sconosciuta della danza italiana del Quattrocento’, 71–84; I. Brainard: ‘Pattern, Imagery and Drama in the Choreographic Work of Domenico da Piacenza’, 85–96; M. Lo Monaco and S. Vinciguerra: ‘Il passo doppio in Guglielmo e Domenico: problemi di mensurazione’, 127–36; A. Pontremoli: ‘Estetica dell’ondeggiare ed estetica dell’aeroso: da Domenico a Guglielmo, evoluzione di uno stile coreutico’, 159–68]
B. Sparti: ‘How Fast do you want the Quadernaria? or Verçepe and Gelosia Revisited’, The Marriage of Music & Dance: London 1991 [unpaginated]
D.R. Wilson: ‘“La giloxia/Gelosia” as Described by Domenico and Guglielmo’, Historical Dance, iii/1 (1992), 3–9
N. Monahin: ‘Leaping Nuns? Social Satire in a Fifteenth-Century Court Dance’, Proceedings [Society of Dance History Scholars] (1993), 171–9
INGRID BRAINARD