(b Pesaro, c1420; d ? after 1484). Italian dancing-master, theorist and choreographer. He was the son of Moses of Sicily, Jewish dancing-master at the Pesaro court. Two autobiographical chapters in his own treatises provide information about his career; he listed a number of major festivities (weddings, entries, visits of state, carnival celebrations etc.) for which he created the dances. The most brilliant courts of the period sought his services; some of the engagements, such as those at Camerino, Ravenna, Urbino, Milan and Florence, extended over several years. Perhaps for convenience or personal safety, or to enhance his standing in his profession, he converted to Christianity and assumed the name Giovanni Ambrosio; the treatise under this name, F-Pn it.476, is nearly identical with F-Pn it.973, the only securely dated examplar (1463) of Guglielmo's manual. Guglielmo was at the Naples court from 1465 to 1467, and soon thereafter (c1469–79) as maestro di ballare, together with his son Pierpaolo, in the service of the Montefeltro in Urbino. About 1480 we find him in Ferrara as Isabella d'Este's dancing teacher. Guglielmo, who was knighted by the Emperor Frederick III in Venice in 1469, was praised by his contemporaries, among them the Poet Laureate G.M. Filelfo in his Canzon morale … ad honore et laude di maestro Guglielmo Hebreo.
Like all 15th-century dance instruction books, Guglielmo's treatise, De pratica seu arte tripudii vulgare opusculum, is divided into two major sections: the theoretical introduction and the dances themselves. Although he maintained that he was ‘the devoted disciple and eager imitator of Domenico da Piacenza’, his theoretical approach is quite different from that of his teacher. Whereas Domenico stressed the philosophy of dancing, Guglielmo was more practical. As an experienced teacher, he was familiar with the problems of his art and ready to provide solutions. His tests for the beginning ballarino, rules of behaviour on the dance floor (see illustration), and advice to the musicians and to those among his students who would like to try their hand at choreography show him to have been a keen and often witty observer of courtly life and manners. The number of dances varies from copy to copy, but two basic types of 15th-century court dance, bassadanza and ballo, as well as a few ballettos, are included. Like Domenico's La Sobria and La Mercanzia the charming balletto Malgratiosa is a miniature dance-drama. Besides Guglielmo's choreographies the treatise contains dances by Domenico, Giuseppe Ebreo (Guglielmo's brother) and Lorenzo de' Medici. The unusually large number of copies testifies to Guglielmo's fame.
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8 bassedanze di M. Guglielmo da Pesaro, I-FOLd B.V.14; ed. N. Faloci-Pulignani (Foligno, 1887) |
De pratica seu arte tripudii vulgare opusculum(MS, 1463, F-Pn it.973, it.476 [Giovanni Ambrosio]; I-Fl Antinori 13 [dated 1510; no music], Fn Magl.XIX.9, MOe VII.A.82 (α.J.9.4.), Sc L.V.29; US-NYp Cia Fornaroli Collection); ed. and trans. B. Sparti (Oxford, 1993); 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); see also Francalanci (1990)
Arte della danza (MS frag., I-Fn Pal.1021, ff.155v–156v)
E. Motta: ‘Musici alla corte degli Sforza’, Archivio storico lombardo, xiv (1887), 29–64, 278–340, 514–61; pubd separately (Milan, 1887/R)
O. Kinkeldey: ‘A Jewish Dancing Master of the Renaissance (Guglielmo Ebreo)’, Studies in Jewish Bibliography … in Memory of Abraham Solomon Freidus (New York, 1929), 329–72; repr. separately (Brooklyn, NY, 1966) [incl. Filelfo's poem]
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)
B. Becherini: ‘L'“Arte della danza” di Guglielmo da Pesaro’, La Scala, no.84 (1956), 20–24
A. Melica: ‘Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro, maestro di ballo del Quattrocento’, RaM, xxix (1959), 51–60
B. Becherini: Catalogo dei manoscritti musicali della Biblioteca nazionale di Firenze (Kassel, 1959)
D. Bianchi: ‘Tre maestri di danza alla corte di Francesco Sforza’, Archivio storico lombardo, 9th ser., ii (1962–4), 290–99
P.O. Kristeller: Iter italicum, i (London and Leiden, 1963)
F. Crane: Materials for the Study of the Fifteenth Century Basse Danse (New York, 1968)
I. Brainard: ‘Bassedanse, Bassadanza and Ballo in the 15th Century’, Dance History Research: Perspectives from Related Arts and Disciplines (New York, 1970), 64–79
B. Pescerelli: ‘Una sconosciuta redazione del trattato di danza di Guglielmo Ebreo’, RIM, ix (1974), 48–55
I. Brainard: ‘The Role of the Dancing Master in 15th Century Courtly Society’, Fifteenth Century Studies, ii (1979), 21–44
F.A. Gallo: ‘L'autobiografia artistica di Giovanni Ambrosio (Guglielmo Ebreo) da Pesaro’, Studi musicali, xii (1983), 189–202
P. Castelli, M. Mingardi and M. Padovan, eds.: Mesura et arte del danzare: Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo(Pesaro, 1987) [incl. P. Castelli: ‘Il moto aristotelico e la “licita scientia”: Guglielmo Ebreo e la speculazione sulla danza nel XV secolo’, 35–57]
D.R. Wilson: ‘“Damnes” as Described by Domenico, Cornazano and Guglielmo’, Historical Dance, ii/6 (1988–91), 3–9
A. Francalanci: ‘The “Copia di Mo Giorgio e del giudeo di ballare basse danze e balletti” as Found in the New York Public Library’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, xiv (1990), 87–179 [incl. edn]
M. Padovan, ed.: Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro e la danza nelle corti italiane del XV secolo: Pesaro 1987 (Pisa, 1990) [incl. B. Sparti: ‘Questions concerning the Life and Works of Guglielmo Ebreo’, 35–50; P. La Rocca: ‘Modelli spaziali e dispositivi coreutici nella copia parigina del trattato di Guglielmo’, 137–51]
D.R. Wilson: ‘“La giloxia/Gelosia” as described by Domenico and Guglielmo’, Historical Dance, iii/1 (1992), 3–9
INGRID BRAINARD