'LE GRATIE D'AMORE' 1602 BY CESARE NEGRI: TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY (RENAISSANCE, DANCE MUSIC, LUTE TABLATURE, ITALIAN HISTORY)

Le Gratie d'Amore represents the most complete picture of the art of dancing of late 16th and early 17th century Italy. It is a manual in 3 treatises that displays in the third and largest treatise, all of the major choreographical trends in 16th century dance, including: balli, sectional dances with varied step groupings; balletti, dances with pantomimic or programmatic elements; more traditional couple dances of a processional nature; and lastly, long variation sets. Because each choreography is accompanied by music, the manual becomes valuable for musicologists as well as dance scholars, since the performance of the dance can give many useful clues concerning the performance of the music and vice versa. Moreover, the nature of the music notation is significant. In previous dance manuals there was either no music at all, tenors written in blackened breves, or simple tunes with no specified instrumentation. Negri, however, contains no only tunes in mensural notation but chordal accompaniments in lute tablature.;I have translated the text into English, trying to retain as much of the flavor of the original as possible, while at the same time clarifying the ideas. The music has been transcribed into modern notation with the lute part presented in piano score. The commentary that precedes the translation discusses the general contents in condensed form and then goes on to deal with such matters as the differences in 16th century and modern Italian that are problematic in translation, the various dance types included, the transcription and performance of the music, and the reconstruction of the dances for performance. Finally, there are appendices that list the instruments mentioned in the manual, mistakes found in the music, and the rhythmic timing of all the basic steps.;Of additional interest in the first 2 treatises of Le Gratie are the descriptions of elaborate leaps and spins, some of which can be used as ornaments for the basic steps given in the third treatise, and the descriptions of numerous variations for the gagliarda, the most virtuosic dance of the day. The first treatise lists Negri's credentials, including his teachers and students and the royal personages for whom he danced, these including some of the most important names in European political history of that time. There are also fairly detailed descriptions in an elaborate prose style of fetes and intermedios that Negri directed in Milan, making it clear that Florence was not alone in the presentation of fabulous spectacles.